


The Friend Trap

by WarpzoneKid



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Coming Out, Crack Treated Seriously, Dont worry the gore is all in chapter 1, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Everybody Lives, F/M, Getting Together, In which I try to be a funnyman, Jewish Richie Tozier, Light Angst, M/M, Richie Tozier's Stand Up Act, Stanley Uris Lives, Vaguely inspired by the Parent Trap, kinda ;), the losers all ship Reddie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21613726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarpzoneKid/pseuds/WarpzoneKid
Summary: Seven losers entered the neibolt house that night .Seven people who were at one point, children. Seven people who were wise, if not definitely more aged, beyond their years. Seven people who were about to kill a g-ddamn clownSeven Losers entered that house that night and in the light of the morning, seven losers left....And now 5 of those Losers are gonna fix 27 years of unresolved sexual tension if it kills them, but what are Richie and Eddie not telling them?
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Comments: 24
Kudos: 162





	1. Chapter 1

Seven losers entered the neibolt house that night . 

Seven people who were at one point, children. Seven people who were wise, if not definitely more aged, beyond their years. Seven people who were about to kill a g-ddamn clown,

Seven losers.

The ritual of Chüd hadn’t worked. The Losers were tossed like rag dolls about the cavern. The spider that had tormented them and ripped them apart for 27 years stalked slowly around the stone cavern, sizing each of the Losers in the brilliant glow of It’s dead lights. He decided on the funny one. He had been the first one to take a swing at him all those years ago. Now It would get the first swing.

Richie’s eyes rolled back into his head and what was left of his visible irises had turned a blind man’s white. He felt himself being lulled into a terrible sleep. But now his dreams were nightmares. He saw Stan, blood flowing from his wrists in a bathtub; he saw Beverly and Ben, clinging to each other, even in death. Blood came from Bev’s throat and something like dirt came from Ben’s. He saw Bill lying impaled on the spikes of the crater from which It originated, blood flowing from a limb missing just like the one his deceased younger brother sported; and he saw Mike, curled over the vase that they had burned their tokens in, tears streaming from his eyes and blood streaming from a wound on his head.

The last vision was the worst though. It was Eddie. He was leaned over him. He had that dopey, extra large grin, the one that he reserved for special occasions. He had tears building in his eyes, “I killed IT! Richie I-“ and then their moment of solace was ripped away as a leg came out of Eddie’s chest like a sick parody of Alien. Eddie cried out as he fell to the ground. And within minutes he was dead.

Then he was snapped out of it. There was Eds, with the grin that marked the beginning of his worst nightmare. He opened his mouth to announce his victory and Richie was tempted to close his eyes to avoid the coming tragedy. But he realized, if he had time for that, he had time for this. He rolled them sideways, they fell into a small pocket cave; interlocked in each other’s arms, like when they tussled down the grassy hills as kids. The spot they abandoned was impaled by the sharp spike of Pennywise’s leg.

“First rule or horror movies, Eds. Never celebrate until you’re sure the bad guy’s dead.” Richie joked fondly, now pinning Eddie to the ground. They stayed like that for a while until the offending leg tried to sweep around the pocket. They separated and huddled against the farthest wall from the entrance, sucking in their guts. 

Pennywise seemed to get bored of them and left to pursue the other members of the gang. The two immediately joined again. “Fuck, you’re a shitty risk analyst.” Richie gasped as he embraced the other man.

“Beep beep asshat.” Eddie sobbed into his shoulder. “I thought I killed it. It seemed s-so small. I felt powerful, like at the pharmacy. It felt small.”

“Shhhh shhhh, Eds. You tried.” Richie stroked Eddie’s back slowly in circles to regulate his breathing. His breath hitched, still. Richie reached deep into his pants pocket. He pulled out an Inhaler, sealed inside a ziplock bag. 

Eddie hastily took it from him and took a deep breath from it. “I always knew there was a reason I stuck with you as a kid.” He smiled softly.

“Yeah, yeah I’m great. Now how the hell do we get this thing.” Richie asked. All of the sudden they were joined in their pocket by 5 other Losers sliding in through the small entrance. Stan looked at them in their embracing position and squinted in confusion for half a second before the gravity hit him.

“Holy shit, what’s going to happen to Patty?” He asked the air. “I am going to die down here and she’s never gonna know. We were supposed to be going on vacation in Buenos Aires. But no, I’m here, fighting this bitch ass clown!” Stan screamed. Mike noticed the clown above them flinch at the insult. He looked around and noticed the small vents sprouting from the pocket.

“We need to make him small enough to fight.” Mike gasped.

Beverly noticed too. “It must abide by the rules of the shape it inhabits.” She gasped. “That’s how he gets around! He gets small!”

“An-And how are we gon-going to do that?” Bill asked. “We c-can’t exact-exactly shove him in a per-Pringle’s tube and call it a day.”

“There’s a bunch of ways to make someone small.” Mike pointed out. “Remember when we beat him up the first time. We humiliated him back into hibernation. We have to make him feel small!”

“I’m with you ‘til the end.” Eddie said. “I wanna get out of this shit hole so bad.”

“Alright Losers! Operation roasted clown on three.” Richie jumped in to support Eddie. He’d already prevented one death. Let’s prevent 6 more.

The others rolled their eyes but got in position to rush out.

“1.” Richie began

“2.” Eddie continued for him. 

Stan looked at his friends, more fierce and strong than they’d been as children, and felt a surge of bravery. The kind he felt when he smashed It’s skull with a tire iron after the other Losers swung their bats and chains, pipes and fists and fence posts. The kind he got as he gave his Bar Mitzvah guests his speech and didn’t give a damn what his dad thought and he looked to Richie’s supportive presence from the 3rd row. The kind he knew he could have when Mike told him the other Losers were coming back to Derry to help. 

Stan Uris had never been a brave man, not on his own at least. He would never be the type to rush headlong into battle like the others or try to fight It on his own like Bill. No that would never be him. But when he had the support of his friends? Then none of what he  _ had been  _ or  _ would have been  _ mattered, what he  _ will do _ , did. He will be along with his friends and he will go down with his friends. And he  _ will  _ see his wife again. And that let him  _ feel  _ brave. And that’s what matters.

“ **_1_ ** .” Stan said, a shaky but sure smile on his face.

The Losers rushed from the pocket. And surrounded the clown, darting between his legs like the trees of the forest they played in as children 

**_“You can_ ** **_not_ ** **_escape me! I AM THE EATER OF WORLDS!”_ ** It yelled with a bass that shook the whole cavern, legs still stabbing at and missing the scurrying humans.

“ _ Eater of worlds? _ ” Eddie sneered. “Bitch! You haven’t even left the same town in billions of years!  _ Eater of worlds my ass! _ ”

“Yeah!” Richie goaded on “You’re the cosmic entity equivalent to the high school quarterback who ends up working at the car wash for the rest of his life and never leaves his hometown except to go the Applebee’s in the next town over as an anniversary gift to his wife that he married right out of high school!”

The rest of the Losers laughed. It winced and seem to shrink.  **_“No!!! I am the eater of- the eater of worlds!”_ **

“No you aren’t! You’re just a clown!” Ben yelled 

**_“No!”_ **

“You’re not just a clown!” Mike screamed “You are the whole goddamn circus!”

“That’s right! You really thought you were an eater of worlds? You got your shit rocked by a group of tweens, one of which had a broken arm, and now you invite us back to your house to try again now that we’re fully developed? Whatever clown college you went to need to take back your degree dumbass!” Stan yelled, throwing a rock into his eye for emphasis. The clown shrank even smaller.

“Where are you keeping them worlds you’ve been eating? In that forehead, Pennywide?” Beverly taunted, throwing a rock of her own.

“You’re-.” Bill gathered several rocks in his arms and threw them to punctuate his words. “Not. A. God. Or. An. Eater. Of. Worlds.” He held the last stone, the largest one he had scooped off of the broken stone floor and weighed it in his hand and reared back like a baseball player at the pitch. “You’re just a clown!” 

The rock hit It between the eyes. It stumbled back into the cavern’s jagged centerpiece. The Losers slowly descended on him, yelling “Clown! Clown! Clown!” Pennywise slowly shrank and crumbled.

“You look like someone painted a leather balloon with shitty paint.” Richie demeaned as he yanked off one of Its spiked legs.

Mikr plunged his hand into the chest cavity of the monster that had tormented the town for thousands of years and he felt his hand brush something solid. He wrapped his fingers around it and tugged. Several baby-like hands weakly grasped at Mike’s and to try and keep it in. He yanked and broke free of the grip and saw in his hands a still beating heart. He brought it to his friends and everyone instinctively knew what to do. They each put a hand over the heart and squeezed. 

The heart was crushed and Pennywise disintegrated, the glow of the deadlights went a sickly dim green and then vanished. They looked at each other in the darkness. 

It was silent for a moment. Like not even the usual ambiance of the world could not believe what happened. Then they all broke out into tears and started hugging each other. It was a joyous moment. Then the cavern started to shake and they all realized with a horrible clarity that they needed to get out. Richie grabbed Eddie’s hand and dragged him out at the front of the pack. Ben did the same with Beverly and Bill, Stan and Mike followed suit. They narrowly avoided the collapsing beams and falling drywall. Finally they pushed past the rotting wood of the front door and they all tripped over each other on the street in front of Neibolt.

Seven Losers entered that house that night and in the light of the morning, seven losers left. 

They watched in near disbelief as the home that once stood as the setting of their nightmare collapsed into a sinkhole. The celebration continued from where they were interrupted. It did not get past the Losers’ notice that Eddie and Rich had not let go of each others hands yet. 

“This has been a great reunion and all, guys, but honestly? That clown better be dead this time because I would rather kill my self than try and get my 67 year old ass down in that hole and do this again.” Stan joked.

A chorus of ‘same’ went around the group. And a bit of tension left everyone’s bodies.

“Oh, God, I’m so disgusting.” Eddie moaned, looking at the grime he was covered in. “It didn’t kill me, but the tetanus will.”

“I know somewhere we can clean this shit off.” Bill smiled and slowly the smiles spread to the rest of the Losers club. They walked until they came across a cliff face. There was a railing and a sign there now but it didn’t matter to them. It wouldn’t have in the past either. Bev, just like when they were young, was the first to leap. She was followed up by Ben and Bill. Eddie took off his shoes, “I don’t know-“ he said nervously as he approached the edge, before two sets of strong hands pushed him off, flailing and screaming that he hated them. Mike and Richie laughed and jumped in together.

They landed with a splash. The cold water of the quarry entered their noses and eyes and ears, and in Eddie’s case, mouths.

“Oh my God, I swallowed it! I swallowed it! I’m gonna get some kind of lake disease for sure!” He wailed.

They laughed at the familiarity of the situation and started to laugh and play in the water and for just a moment they were 7 kids in a sleepy town in Maine again. Eventually Eddie pulled himself onto an elevated underwater plateau, high enough that he could sit up and be up to his waist.

“God, I cannot believe we used to play in this thing!” He scolded his former self. “I’m going to get Cryptosporidium for sure.”

Richie pulled himself up onto the same platform. He was now free to use his arms and examined his cracked glasses “Awww, now it really is just like old times, Eduardo.” He said pinching Eddie’s cheek endearingly. “Next thing you know, you’ll be crying about your gazebos again.”

“Goddammit Richie! You haven’t changed either jackass.” Eddie said in a faux mad voice. “And don’t call me that!” He swatted Richie’s hand away

“Aw, you’re so cute when you’re mad.” Richie put his head on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Well I’m about to get real fucking adorable, Chee.” Eddie didn’t bother pushing the other man off.

Meanwhile the Losers watched from a distance, wading close to each other. 

“Now, I know I’m still putting my memories of this place together, but were they always so… close?” Beverly asked.

“I don’t know what you mean this is how they’ve al- oh my god.” Ben said. 

“I hate that fucking clown so much.” Stan agreed. “Remember how annoying this was as kids? Now they’ve had 22 years apart to boost it!”

“Okay, we’re all in agreement we gotta put this to an end, right?” Bill asked and the other 4 aggressively nodded.

~

At the BnB where they were staying, they continued their party by doing what any traumatized adults would do, day drinking. It was a scene not unlike before their fortune cookies turned into a David Lynch film. They all sat on the antique sofas of the town home and held their own bottles of their pick of poison.

Stan had a bottle of scotch, Beverly had a half drained beer, Ben had popped a bottle of champagne, mike and bill had a couple of vintage wines cradled in their arms like a baby, and Richie and Eddie were half heartedly fighting over a bottle of whiskey.

Eddie held the bottle now and was drunkenly talking about his life in New York. “And so, this  _ azzhold-  _ sorry- this  _ asshole- _ Grabs me by the shoulder and pulls me in and then some guy comes outta the store we’re in front of and takes a pic- a picture. And this very scary knockoff Minnie Mouse starts  _ demanding  _ I pay for it-“ He was cut off by the sound of his phone buzzing in his jeans. He hands the bottle off to Richie, who immediately takes a large swig, and checks the message. He reads it, grimaced, and slipped it back into his jeans. 

Beverly reads the messages upside down. Or at least the name. Myra.

“So, Eddie what’s this Myra trying to text you about?” she teased.

“Oh, she’s just sending my reminder to take my meds.” He rolled his eyes. “You know what I hate most about my memories being tampered with? Well besides not remembering you guys of course. It’s that when we were still dealing with It the first time is when I found out my medicine was placebo. After I moved to New York for college, I completely forgot that I didn’t need them and one day my mom called and said she had filled my prescription with a local pharmacy and you know what I did? I thanked her! I thanked her for re-fucking my mental state up! So for the past 22 years I’ve been taking sugar pills!” He groaned.

Richie rubbed his back as Eddie put his head in his hands and stole the bottle back. The rest of the Losers gave each other a conspiratorial look. Bill, ever the leader started the conversation.

“So, Myra, what? Is she a girlfriend? Wife?” He asked

“Eddie Kaspbrak? You’re married? To a woman?” Richie gasped.

“One. No, she’s not my wife or anything, she’s my PA. My mom messed me up but not that much.” Eddie shivered. “And two. Fuck you, dude!” Eddie yelled at Richie with a tone in his voice that none of the rest of the people in the room could understand, except that it held no real malice.

“Fuck you!” Richie slurred and giggled.

“Oh come on, there is no way that Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier got married.” Beverly encouraged.

“Uh? Yeah? I am?” Richie said with a confused look on his face. Everyone in the room leaned forward with a sudden interest in what Richie was going to say next. “It was a beautiful ceremony. Summer wedding at the Campbell, white, gold, and navy color scheme, big cake, the whole nine yards. You can ask Eds, it was incredible.” The last sentence made everyone’s eyes go wide.

“Eddie was there?” Mike asked. 

“Yeah? Why wouldn’t he have been at the wedding?” Richie asked, and then a wicked grin grew on his face. Eddie knew what was coming and before he could get out a noise of protest, Richie continued. “It would be rude not to show up at your mom’s wedding! I really couldn’t ask for a better step-son!” He wrapped his arms around Eddie, who weakly and uncoordinatedly tried to break free. The others sat back and sighed in defeat. 

And so the day went on and none of them bothered to move on from their spots. Where the staff was was a mystery. Their butts were now going to be a permanent indentation in the aged and yellowed floral pattern of the couches. The entire bar had been drained nearly. It was pure gumption that was keeping their livers from betrayal. 

Eddie was the first to get up. “God, nod tah- not to cut the good times shirt-  **short** , but I need a fugckin’ nap.” He put his hand on Richie’s gut to push himself up. Richie made an exaggerated deflating sound like a rubber chicken.

“Eds, baby boy,” the rest of the Losers choked on their drinks. “Hate to see you go but love tah see yah walk ‘way!” He drunkenly catcalled in an admittedly much improved New Jersey accent than the one he had curated as a kid.

Eddie managed to flip him off as he somehow fell  _ up _ the g-ddamn stairs. The rest of the Losers looked questioningly at Richie as he watched the retreating form with an earnest lovestruck look on his face. 

“So- uh- Rich, hows Cali been treating you?” Stan asked.

Richie snapped his head back to Stan, cheeks still flushed with alcohol. “I don’t live in Cali.” He said in a blunt, confused tone.

“I thought you said you came from there, though?” Stan asked, going on a play by play of their reunion at the Chinese restaurant.

“Yeah, I caught my flight from there. I kinda am technically supposed to be in the last leg of a tour in, like, Reno right now.” Richie sheepishly admitted. “I actually live in New York. I moved there because I had this dumbass idea when I was dumb and shiny and eighteen that New York was this Mecca of comedy. SNL, Friends, Seinfeld, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Muppets Take Manhattan, all in New York. And I guess I stayed because I found something worth staying for.” He smiled serenely into the lip of his drained bottle. “I guess it also helps that I  _ did _ get on SNL.”

Bill pressed in. “Damn, Richie, eighteen-year-old you totally ruined my image of you laying out on the beach in LA, and trying to impress Malibu girls that are a hundred times out of you league, and then, I don’t know, fucking doing a line of coke off of the Hollywood sign or some shit.”

Richie’s smile fell slightly. “Sorry to shatter your dreams, Big Bill, but I gotta clear up some misconceptions. One, as good as I look in a speedo, the closest this we have in New York to the beach is Coney Island, and I’m no Eddie, but that place is gross. Went there for my 19th birthday and I got pink eye and a staph infection. Two, on the topic of drugs, how  _ dare you  _ accuse me of something so disgusting and crass as ripping booger sugar on the Hollywood sign” He gasped in a fake hurt voice “in high society NYC, we are much classier, we do ecstasy in the Empire State Building. And thirdly…” Richie’s carefully amassed stand up persona he had slipped into from telling his last to jokes diminished. “Well… I’m not trying to impress any Malibu girls. Or any New York girls. Or any other girls. I- I’m- God why is this so goddamn hard, it’s twenty-fucking-sixteen. It shouldn’t be this hard! But this is Derry  _ fuckin’  _ Maine and nothing is ever allowed to be fuckin’ easy for me here, is it?” Hot tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Richie…” Beverly said as she untangled from cuddling Ben on their shared loveseat to join Richie on his couch. The seat was still warm from when Eddie sat there. She put her hand on Richie’s rattling back. “You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to. You’re drunk. We’re drunk. If you want we can drink until we blackout and forget this and even if we do we won’t be able to think about it because of the splitting hangovers we’re going to have because we sure as shit aren’t drinking enough water.”

Richie looked at he with wide eyes “No- No! I need to say this. I want to tell you guys before you end up seeing it on the Internet or something on Twitter.” Richie assured. “I don't even know why I’m so scared to tell  _ you guys _ . You aren’t even the first to know, it’s public knowledge. Maybe it’s just this place and the… memories… or maybe it’s because I love you guys so much and I don’t think I can lose you again. I just gotta say it. Gotta rip off the band-aid.” Richie psyched himself up. “I’m gay. There. I said it. I’m gay. A practicing Homosexual. The biggest gay to ever queer. I am a man who is attracted to solely men. You know what? Fuck that thing earlier about being a ‘practicing’ homosexual. I don’t need the practice, I’m just that good at it now.” He laughed through the tears now. He was shaking harder now and he buried his face into his hands, still laughing, still crying.

The Losers left their seats to hug Richie in a group. Richie let his hands wander from his face and let his arms snake around them. And it felt nice. It felt better than nice. It felt fucking  _ good. _ Like Richie was  _ good.  _ Not good as in ‘Oh yeah, that was a good casserole, Karen, please bring it to Bunco Night again if you can.`` But good in a way that makes the world a little better, a little brighter. Good like when a stranger pays for your order at Starbucks. Good as in right. Good as in the love we all deserve. 

Richie had been out for years. He had made jokes about it. He spoke about it in interviews,  _ on Ellen for Pete Sake!  _ He played gay roles in movies and TV shows. He once Tweeted a picture he took of a donut with rainbow sprinkles during breakfast that said ‘It me lol’. Yet it always felt like he was a man holding his holding his breath. Waiting on something. Hiding his dirty little secret from someone. Like any moment the other shoe would drop and he would be that lonely, scared kid from Maine again. 

He was breathing now.

“Wait? Why am I shocked? I knew this.” Stan admitted, hazily.

“Well, Stan my Man, not to go all self-righteous lgbt-” (he pronounced it as leg-bit of course) “on you, but that’s literally in the bottom 20 ways to react to someone coming out.” Richie sighed, but with no real anger, maybe because he’s had to deal with that a million times, maybe because Stan was just his well meaning straight friend, maybe because he had enough alcohol in him to make a horse full of Ketamine look sober.

“No!” Stan backed away and shook his head, giving himself a headache. “It not that I could just tell, although I think I could, I mean, what straight man that’s not a boomer on vacation still wears Hawaiian print button ups casually.”

“I am a fashion icon, Stannual.”

“ _ Sure _ . But anyways, I just remembered. You  _ literally _ told me you were gay right after my Bar Mitzvah!” Stan loudly admitted.

Richie sat there with a look resembling a beached fish for a good 30 seconds before letting out a soft. “Oh shit, yeah.” Followed by fits of laughter. 

The rest of the group joined in and giggled like drunken idiots until their sides hurt until a loud, slurred shout came from upstairs yelled “SHIT YOUR FUCK UP!” 

This resulted in more, albeit, quieter laughter. Richie sighed tenderly, “Fuck, what would I do without that angry lil’ man?”

“Speaking of that ‘angry little man’,” Beverly asked, “when are you planning on telling him?”

“Tell ‘im ‘bout what?” Richie asked dumbly.

“That you’re gay.” Stan answered.

“Oh trust me, he knows.” Richie clarified. “He was the first person I told… Well first after my main mensch, Stan, apparently.”

“Ah-And ho-how did he- how did he take it?” Bill asked now, sitting on the edge of his seat.

Richie took the final swig from his bottle. “Exceedingly well, in my opinion.” He smirked slightly. He looked at Bill and his eyes went wide and he blinked a few times. “Well, I’m seeing two Big Bills, so either the clown is still fuckin’ me up or I think it’s time to follow Eds’ lead and take a loooooong nap.” He said as he lifted himself up and stretched. He yelled up the stairs. “Eeeddddieeeeeee! I’m gonna go to bed too!” 

“THAT’S VERY NICE ASSHOLE, NOW LET ME SLEEP YOU HEATHEN!”

“LOVE YA TOO EDS!” Richie yelled even louder in what could only be described as a Beetlejuice impression as he ran up the stairs, only missing one on the way up.

The Losers all stared at the empty stairs for a minute before Stan spoke up. 

“So they’re totally in love, right?”

The rest of the group agreed.

“Oh, yeah totally.”

“F-Fuck yeah.”

“Dear Jesus, that’s hard to watch.”

“We have got to do something.” Ben declared, ever the romantic. 

“Like what? They’ve been in love for 27 years, maybe longer because I haven’t known you guys as long as they knew each other, and they are  _ STILL _ skirting around each other.” Beverly waved her beer bottle like a laser pointer during a pitch meeting slideshow.

“I mean, we did too sooo…” Ben shrugged.

“Yeah, but at least we got together already.” Beverly pointed out. 

“That’s not the point.” Mike cut in. “The  _ point _ is that if I have to watch them make eyes at each other for another minute, I am going to jump into the Neibolt sinkhole.”

“Oh-Ok gang. B-Before we go ow-our sep-separate ways f-f-for a while, w-we go on one final mission.” Bill snapped naturally back into his role as leader of their childhood gang.

“Operation Reddie on 3?” Stan asked, putting his hand into the center

“Stanley I am far too drunk to count to anything right now.” Ben said seriously, still putting his hand in the middle and then the rest followed suit.

“Ok… uh...three!” Stan giggled as the group made a pact. That was the last coherent thought any of them had before passing out in the light of the stained glass antique lamps.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When they woke up it was morning once more. The birds were chirping, the sun was casting a warm pink glow over the summer sky, the town house was filled with Golden light, the grass had never been quite so green, and the Losers were nursing the worst hangovers of their lives.

Well, all of them except apparently for g-ddamned Richie Tozier; who had, only by the Lord’s grace, not killed off all of his brain cells by all of the underage drinking he accomplished when he was in school. Richie had developed what he called the perfect hangover cure, so infamously foul that could literally peel paint. No other human being on Earth could stomach the shit; but after a good 2 glasses, Richie was feeling right as rain.

He was currently making a lovely “Hooray! We didn’t die!” Breakfast- (Well, he made cereal and some buttered unburnt toast in the still weirdly empty house’s kitchen.) -when Ben came in. In terms of alcohol tolerance, it always came as a shock to people when they learned that Ben had always had the second best alcohol tolerance of the group. (The order from best to worst went as follows: Richie, Ben, Beverly, Bill, Mike, Stan, and then Eddie.)

As a teen this was easily explained by his large body mass, as an adult it was explained by the fact that once he got, pardon my bluntness,  _ hot _ he was invited to several keggers by several sororities and got quite good at holding his alcohol. Oh the party tricks he could accomplish with a slice of lemon and an open nasal passage.

He may have been the second to rise at what was practically ass crack of dawn (9pm), but he was still wishing that Pennywise had just killed him instead of this fate he had bestowed on himself. He groaned as the light filtering through the semi-close blinds hit his eyes. He slunk down into one of the handcrafted green wooden chairs that was far too cozily rustic for what he was pretty sure was a haunted mansion. 

“Good morning, Haystack. How are we feeling on this lovely clown free morning?” Richie asked in a sing song voice as he took a long swig of his hangover cure from a red mug.

“I feel like I finally understand that ‘This is you brain on drugs.’ PSA.” Ben moaned, taking his throbbing head into his hands.

“You could always nut up and take a swig of my swill~” Richie once again practically sang as he extended his mug towards Ben’s grimacing visage.

Ben regarded the brown sludge with a muscle memorized disgust before his brain fully recognized the goop as the infamous ‘Richie Juice’, as it had been coined it in the summer of 1991, in the kitchen of the Denborough’s house after a night of unsupervised adolescent drinking had gotten out of hand. Green tea, maraschino cherries, carrots, ginger powder, almond chunks, 3 shots of espresso, spinach, half a can of red bull, and eggs, all blended together with what Richie described as ‘a few drops of vanilla, for taste’. Undeniably effective. Undeniably shit.

Ben’s hand shot up in an almost defensive manner “No way, Ricardo. Last time I drank that crap, I spewed chunks on Bill’s living room carpet and had acid reflux for a week  _ and  _ I had to brush my teeth, like, a million times to get the taste out of my mouth.”

“But did your hangover go away?” Richie inquired with a cocked brow.

“...Yes.”

“Pussy.” Richie jabbed. And just to make a point, he punctuated his simple declaration with a long, slow slurp, never breaking eye contact with Ben.

“Animal.” Ben retorted, electing instead to grab a piece of toast from Richie’s plate.

“So, Haystack, when are you and the lovely, now  **_Ms._ ** Marsh going to take your honeymoon on the road? Any big plans?” Richie asked sincerely now.

  
“Skies’ the limit bud. I have a yacht off the coast of Monaco that I was thinking of showing her. That is, of course, if she’ll have me.” He sheepishly grinned.

“ _ If she’ll have you?! _ ” Richie gasped. “Dude, are you even, like, remotely aware of what you look like? Seriously, I’m not even saying this as a friend, but as a gay man who is attracted to men; you are  _ hot _ . Like when I saw you at the restaurant, my first thought was ‘WOW, if I wasn’t so happy to be Mr.Kasprak, I would totally want to take a roll in the hay, if you catch my drift’.” He winked, making Ben go involuntarily red.

“If you’re gonna make jokes at Eddie’s expense, at least wait until he’s here.” Another voice said joining the fray. Beverly, in her pajamas that cost more that Richie charged per seat, trudged into the room. She too was nursing a hangover of epic proportions and couldn’t even stand to open her eyes to the late morning sunshine. She blindly made her way to Ben and kissed him on top of the head. “And to answer your question, Benny boy, I  _ will _ have you. Monaco sounds lovely.”

Ben grinned from ear to ear like an idiot. He gave her a quick peck on the lips as she sat down in the chair next to him, also stealing a piece of Richie’s toast. Richie made a whine of displeasure at the thievery into his mug. Beverly cracked open one eye at him and her eyes landed on the bright red cup.

“Oh my gosh, is that coffee?” She asked enviously. 

“Oh yeah, I forgot you moved before I invented this stuff.  _ This  _ Ms.Marsh, is a 100 percent guaranteed effective, Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier brand hangover cure.” He gestured to the cup with a flourish.

“You had me at ‘hangover cure’.” She snatched the mug from Richie’s grip. Richie had a wicked smile cracking his face in half and made no move to stop her. 

Ben barely had time to react to the situation, and even then all he could do as she put her lips to the cup was let out a loud and pathetic “Bev, NO!”

But her fate was sealed as she took a swig. Her eyes grew wide with terror and tears filled them as they grew red and bloodshot. She started gagging, the vile drink still stuck in her mouth. She grew pale and started to sweat as she looked around for anywhere to spit it out. The nearest sink was too far for her to reach without throwing up and so she made one of the worst decisions of her life (Up there with marrying Tom, not getting with Ben sooner, following Bill into a clown-infested crack house, and the time in her early career when she had tried to make a mix of neons and beige fashionable.) And she swallowed it. Richie gingerly took the mug out of her shaking fingers.

“Jesus Christ, Richie. Was that rat poison? Why would you make that?  _ And why are you still drinking it? _ ” She yelled with a hoarse voice at Richie, who shrugged as he under continued to drink. 

“Well, you still took it better than Benjamin Button, who is the reason that the first ever batch of ‘Richie Juice’ is probably still soaked into the shag carpet of the Denborough house.” 

“Oh shit, is that the mother fucking ‘Richie Juice’?” A new voice entered the kitchen; Eddie, sporting a fresh bandage over his stabbed cheek. He made his way next to Richie and huffed as he flopped down. He leaned his head on Richie’s shoulder, much to Ben and Beverly’s amusement, yet Richie didn’t seem to register it. “Rich, if you so much as gesture with that cup vaguely in my general direction, I am leaving. Last time I drank that stuff my  _ spit _ tasted like kombucha for a month.” 

Ben furrowed his brows. He couldn’t remember one time in high school that he had seen Eddie ever drinking the stuff. He had adamantly refused the stuff the moment he saw Mike, Bill and Him all take a drink and regret it. Also he tried to say that he was  _ very probably _ allergic to half of the stuff in there.

“Well, good morning sunshine.” Richie rolled his eyes. “Also, it was like a week and a half tops.”

“Anyways-“ Ben steered the conversation away from the cursed beverage and back to the original conversation. “When are you two going home?” 

“Well, I booked my ticket home for a week from when we got here, so next Sunday? I kinda thought this would take longer. Like, I thought we were going have at least a planning session or at least have to go through a waiting period at a gun store or something before we just barged balls first into Nickelsmart’s crack castle.” Eddie replied and honestly Ben couldn’t blame him.

“Yeah, same. Sunday, I’m leaving for my dates in Reno. Since we killed that sunuva bitch in record time, I’m probably going to back a little sooner, though.” Richie admitted

“Well, I don’t have anywhere to be and I can do all of my work from Skype. I don’t know about Bill and Stan, but this I think it would be nice to spend time together that isn’t influenced by demon alien clowns. I haven’t seen you guys in like 22 years and I haven’t seen Bev in 27. And I feel like I would like to eat a meal together where we actually remember everything and our dessert doesn’t turn into a horror movie before we have to part again for who knows how long.” Ben admitted.

Richie and Eddie looked at eachother. A silent conversation passed between them. It was easy to forget the strength of the connection that they all shared, but one cannot go knowing someone else for as long as they did and manage to let that familiarity fade.

“Sounds great Ben.” Eddie answered for them both.

Beverly shivered “Hey, Richie,  _ Richard _ , why does my blood hurt, Richard?” Beverly asked, visibly shaking. 

“Well, that would probably be because you just drank… let me do some quick math here….” Richie did some figuring in his head, using his fingers for assistance. “268 milligrams of caffeine.”

“Hey, what the fuck, Richard?” Beverly asked, to which Richie simply shrugged

“Oh shit, she drank it, didn’t she?” Eddie groaned at Richie.

“Uh-huh. Swallowed it and everything. She’s a real champ.” Richie express admirably.

“Okay, Beverly, you look like you don't weigh that much less than me, and a person my size can only healthily drink around 340 milligrams of caffeine a day. So yeah if I were you, I wouldn’t drink any coffee today or your heart  _ might  _ explode.  **_Might_ ** . So uh, please don’t sue Richie, because he’s not very funny so he doesn’t sell a lot of tickets.” Eddie pleaded.

“Tell that to my sold out shows in the Booth Theatre then Smartass.” Richie poked Eddie in the side.

“Oh please, you’re a gay himbo comedian with a dad bod playing in the Theater District, there wasn’t a single straight non-millennial in the area for miles. Of course that show sold out”

“Oh ho ho Edster, you completely forget my audience of middle age to boomer age white men who are still under the impression that I’m the edgy anti-PC voice that speaks to them because I make sex, drug and alcohol jokes, Jew jokes and made fun of politicians on SNL when in reality I’m a gay Jewish man who hasn’t watched a news station in months; and 10 year old boys who think it’s funny that I said ‘dick’ on TV.” 

“I thought you were trying to defend yourself?” Eddie asked, confused.

“Shut up or I’m pouring the rest of my juice down your throat with a funnel.” Richie warned.

Eddie’s eyes resembles dinner plates in an earthquake. “You- You wouldn’t dare.”

Richie stared him down with conviction. “I’m 5 inches taller than you, I have almost 40 pounds on you, and I am still basking in the post clown-murder-and-Richie-juice glow. I will destroy you, little man.”

“First of all, I’m average height dickhead, you’re just proof of the missing link between man and Sasquatches. Second of all, you. Wouldn’t. Dare.” Eddie glared, first at Eddie and then the cup.

Richie leaned in close enough to almost bump noses. “Oh I dare. Now what’s that I hear? Oh look here comes the airplane from Newark to Spaghetti land~!” Richie sang as he snaked his cup holding arm towards Eddie. Eddie shot out of his seat and ran out of the kitchen, Richie hot on his heels, yelling “Strap in passengers, we are currently experiencing turbulence.”

That left Beverly and Ben staring at the now empty doorway for several complemative moments. They then broke their stare at the door and turned to give each other the same type of eye conversation that Richie and Eddie had.

_ So _

_ That was _

_ Yeah, I know right?!?!? _

_ Crist on a popsicle stick cross-  _ (Beverly felt very accomplished in getting that sentiment across with a few eyebrow raises and eye quirks.)  _ -I genuinely do not remember the pigtail pulling being that bad. _

_ So we’re definitely getting them together before they leave on Sunday, right? _

_ Absolutely, love, when we’re all sobered up, call the rest of the gang to a meeting. This has to stop. _

_ Done and done _

The next thing was said out loud by Beverly.

“Ok, I’m my sight is actually starting to be reduced to flashes and my blood still hurts, Benny I need you to put those gorgeous muscles to work and carry me back to bed please.”

“Oh shit, yeah ok.”


	2. From: Richie To:Eds (Happy Birthday!!!!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for day one of the plan! There was more to Derry than the demons that haunt them and there were more summers than the summer of 1989. Will the Loser's succede in one go? Well, if you look at the chapter count, then absolutely not!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Anti-semitic and homophobic language are used very briefly.  
> (Also: You may have noticed that the work is no longer set to be a three parter. It was because if I wrote everything out in this one chapter that I had planned originally, it would take too long to get to update and it would literally be an ungodly amount of words [this chapter alone was 31 pages in my Google docs!] and no one wants that. Or maybe you do, I don't speak for you all.) Enjoy :)

The plan was now in, well, a planning phase. Richie and Eddie had been sent on a food run, under the guise that it would take two people to get food for seven people and Eddie (obviously) needed to be there’s firsthand to look over the menus for allergens and Richie had to go (obviously) to make sure he actually brought home something edible.

So the remaining five sat around Beverly’s now defunct room. She had decided to shack up with Ben, post-Pennywise, and now the room served as their base of operation. Stan held a notebook, ever the secretary since birth, to take notes. 

“Okay, guys, we all know what we are gathered here today to do.” Bill announced to the group from his place on an armchair, “How do we get those two to get them to admit their feelings for each other within the next week, lest we have to deal with them still pining at our official Losers’ Chri-“ Stan glared over his glasses “Non-denominational winter party.”

“You could have just said holiday party, but ok goy.” Stan deadpanned with an eye roll.

“The point is, does anyone have any ideas about how to play cupid with two 40-year-old idiots?” Bill asked.

The group sat there quietly for a minute, thinking of approximately zero ideas even with their newly recombined seven brain cells. 

“C’mon, three of y’all were married. How did you swing that?” Mike questioned.

Stan sheepishly went first. “Uh, well Pat kinda approached me first. I had been staring at her at a sorority party all night because I was too nervous to say anything and she just approached me and the rest was history.”

Bill went next, “Uh- I met Audra at a release party for my first mo-movie adapt-adaptation. Honestly, we were both smacked out of our minds and we just hooked up. And then in the morning w-we actually talked to each other while sober a-and we just… clicked. She liked that I was a ‘slow talker’. Thought it meant I was being deliberate or something but in reality I just was super afraid of stuttering around her.”

Stan nodded and penned down in the book

**_DRUNK+FEELINGS=MARRIED_ **

“Well, before I knew what a massive abusive douche he was, me and Tom got together through work. We were both in the same industry and had a lot of mutual interests and experiences and friends.” Beverly supplied. Stan nodded and wrote in large, neat cursive 

**_THINGS IN COMMON:_ **

**_Same Friends✔_ **

**_Gay??_ **

**_Trauma_ **

**_New Yorkers✔_ **

**_Grew up together for 18 years✔_ **

**_Both stabbed Bowers_ **

**_Annoying (same sense of humor???)_ **

“Okay guys this is getting kinda sad. How can we not come up with at least 10 things they have in common?” Stan asked, closing the book, using his pen as a bookmark.

“You have to admit they are kind of an ‘opposites attract’ type of odd couple.” Ben admitted

“They are literally Oscar and Felix.” Bev pointed out.

“Okay then. What can we do then to make them finally come to their senses?” Bill asked

“Well _they did_ spend nearly half of their lives in the same town together. That’s gotta be something.” Mike told the group.

“Doesn’t mean they remember it all.” Beverly pointed out. “I went to grab a cigarette earlier and I got a flashback to when I helped you guys shoplift and I took a pack for myself.”

“You’re not the only one. I’ll be doing something super mundane like brushing my teeth and all of the sudden it’s 1987 and I’m at a sleepover at Stan’s house and Richie just bet me to brush my teeth and drink orange juice for 5 bucks.” Bill concurred. Beverly finally noticed the lack of stuttering and decided that he must be starting to get over the shock that had made him regress into his old manner of speaking. She looked at her other two fellow amnesiacs and saw that they were agreed on the same experiences.

“Then maybe we just need to drag those memories of their time together back to the surface again.” Mike suggested. “Not every summer was the summer of ‘89 and not everyday that summer was spent trying not to piss our britches because of the clown.”

“That’s a great idea, Mike.” Ben said.

“Yeah,” Bill agreed, “Now we just need to figure out where their greatest hits are. Where did those two idiots hang out the most?”

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

That’s how the losers all ended up back in their old hideaway once again for the second time during their trip home. It was as good a place as any, because for one, it was one of the few places in Derry Fucking Maine that didn’t contain any truly bad memories. For Bill, Bev, and Eddie, it was a place to escape their homes, for Stan it was one of the best bird-watching spots in the town, for Ben it was his first architectural marvel, and for Mike and Richie it as simply just a place to hang out with their friends in a place that was only theirs and theirs alone. 

As soon as they descended into the hole, Stan passed around the showercaps. He was grateful that he made the choice to only burn one out of six, with Richie, as always, turning down one with a snarky little remark and Eddie putting his slowly back after the remark was made. 

It was strange, now that the clown was dead, all of Derry seemed to change in a way. The racist and anti-semetic graffiti was now covered in a fresh coat of paint, the barrens were a little less grey and depressing (and quite frankly a little less spooky in certain Losers’ options) and now greener and more alive, and the sky seemed a little bluer. The effect had certainly extended to the club house. It was looking a little less like an abandoned basement and more like a preserved monument to their childhood, exactly the way their minds left it. Light poured through the open hatch and Ben’s hand found purchase on a button on the wall. Instantly, hundreds of battery powered Christmas lights flickered to life, illuminating the once darkened corners of the space and allowing the group to actually take it all in.

Stan looked at a beanbag chair with a milk crate sitting next to it. The crate had a small leather book sitting there with a yellowed paperback underneath it. He bent down with a groan (Dammit, his 40’s hadn’t been kind to his knees or his spine) causing the the losers to look his way at what he was doing. He picked them up and a look of recognition crossed his face as he read their titles. The paperback had a portrait of a bright red cardinal, the title read in straight white font:

_Birds of Maine: Field Guide_

The cover of the journal looked blank at first but when he looked closely he saw indented lettering that he knew once had gold foil in the crevices. It was a crane with letters above it that read:

_Birder’s Journal_

The first page read in large childish cursive: 

_THIS SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL IS THE PROPERTY OF:_ _STANLEY URIS_

Suddenly a memory flashed through all of their minds and it was August, 1989 again.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

**_August 2, 1989_ **

Stan was running through the dark barrens, sweating through his shirt. He held his heavy metal flashlight in one hand and his walkie talkie in the other. He scanned the forest floor with the light, searching desperately for the hatch down into the club house. His walkie staticked to life and Richie’s voice came through. He was screaming and sounded panicked.

“Stan, for the love of the big man upstairs! Stan please hurry! Oh shit! Help!” He screamed and something hit the ground in the background and the frequency cut out.

Stan picked up the pace, following the path he took almost every day to the club house by muscle memory. The radio came back to life again. It was Eddie this time. He made a noise that sounded like a strangled gurgle.

“Stan- I- Oh my-” The radio cut out and then cut back in, “my chest! Where are you?” He wheezed.

“I’m almost there!” He shouted into the mic of the radio. Finally, a glint of silver caught his eye as his flashlight made a pass over the handle of the hatch door. Stan ran to it and practically ripped it off its hinges as he descended. He barely bothered with the steps, practically jumping to the ground, wielding his maglite like a lightsaber. The room was dark. The lanterns and flashlights and christmas lights were all turned off. He breathed silently and heavily, eyes flitting around, anticipating any form of attack. 

“Guys?” He asked the darkness. 

Suddenly, the dark turned to light as all of the lights we switched on at once. In the center of the bunker, all six of his friends stood with a blue sheet cake. They shouted in unison, “Surprise, Stan!”

Unfortunately, Stan was a little bit on edge. He screamed and launched the heavy metal rod in their direction, squarely hitting Richie. Fortunately, it missed any bones or organs that could have been ruptured or broken by the impact. Unfortunately, it did hit him right in the dick. Richie lead out a loud yelp and hit the ground in pain. But, once again, fortunately, nobody had trusted him to hold the cake anyways.

“This is the last time I plan you a surprise party!” He wheezed. Eddie was immediately at his side, ever the club medic. 

“Oh shit!” He screamed, cradling Richie. “We need to ice it! Someone hand me the ice cream!”

Richie’s eyes went wide at the idea of Eddie’s hands going anywhere near his groin. “No way, Eduardo! You’re not icing my junk! You know that your mother is the only one allowed to touch me there.” He tried to joke through his voice cracking.

“Beep Beep Rich! What if you can’t have kids one day because you got your balls smashed by a maglite!” Eddie retorted with worry.

Richie gave Eddie a look that only Stan understood. (“Stan, I have to tell you something.” Floated through his brain.) “Then you should be happy that you aren’t going to be getting any new step-siblings!” Earning him a flipped bird

“Shit Richie! I’m sosososo sorry.” Stan profusely apologized as he also kneeled over his fallen comrade.

Richie frowned at him. “ A meesa mashee af deer.” He hissed in pained Yiddish.

“ _Really._ You can’t remember enough Yiddish to talk to your grandparents, but you remember how to tell me to go die? What is all of this anyways?” Stan asked, helping Richie off of the ground.

“It _w_ \- _was_ meant to-to be a s-s-surprise bir-birthday party.” Bill said, putting the cake aside on an old cable spool that had been brought down into the hole and recycled into a table. “It was actually all Richie’s idea.”

“What? But I already had my 13th birthday? Richie, you were literally _at_ my bar mitzvah last month.” Stan asked confused.

“Yeah, I know. Beautiful speech by the way, veryyyy eloquent.” Richie admitted, which earned him an eye roll. “But, we were hanging out and I quoted, ahem, a certain part of your speech and none of them understood my, quite frankly, hilarious reference and impression of you. And so I was all like ‘You _had_ to be there.’ and then I was like ‘Yo, why the fuck weren’t you there?’ but then I remembered how our friend Big Bill over here gave me a hands on nose job.” Bill blushed furiously as Richie pointed to him.

“Get to the point, dick.” Stan groaned.

“That’s mah name, don’t wear it out.” Richie said in an old time snake-oil-salesman voice, “And so I was like, we can’t have Stan be the first member of the Loser’s Club not to have all members in attendance at his birthday party since the stomach bug incident of ‘82.” Richie explained.

“I told you five times not to eat that cheese sandwich you found in the bottom of your backpack.” Eddie scolded.

Richie ignored him. “So I said, it’s still not too late to throw a radical belated birthday party for him so we put all of this together and… mozel tov?” He said nervously, pulling an Ecto Cooler from the blue plastic cooler that had laid untouched in Bill’s garage ever since his family’s last vacation with Georgie, and handing it to Stan.

Stan felt his face, no scratch that his whole body, grow warm as he took the juice box. He couldn’t stop the smile that grew across his face, nor did he want to. “You guys… did all of this for me?”

“W-well duh. You’re our f-f-friend, Stan.” Bill confirmed. “We all puh-pooled our m-money to-together at the l-last second to get all of this stuff so late. B-Ben paid for m-most of it though. I j-just bought th-the drinks.”

Stan looked to Ben who shrugged, “My parent’s like to try and buy my affection to make up for moving so often. They were happy to give me money to spend on friends.”

“I finally found a bakery that was open at 10pm. Blessed be the Walmarts of America.” Beverly proudly declared. Stan glanced over at the cake and sure enough, hand-lettered in loopy white icing was written:  **_HAPPY 13TH B-DAY STAN THE MAN!!!_ ** . “Ben picked out the ice cream.”

“Me and Eddie were on decorating duty back here.” Mike said, gesturing to the several, unfloating balloons (every color except for red of course) and streamers taped to the wall; including a banner made of a clothes line and post-it notes that read the same thing as the cake, strung between the two pillars where the hammock sat. 

“And I chose out the birthday gifts. Again, thank the Almighty for Walmarts.” Richie bragged as he handed him two rectangular parcels, each covered in the paper from the Sunday comics. Bill nudged him in the ribs. “Okay we all looked together, but the little one was all my idea.”

Stan didn’t care whose idea it was as he lunged forward and wrapped as many of his friends as he could into a hug with his long arms. “Thank you, guys.” he whispered before he pulled back to open his gifts. Once he opened them, everyone received an extra hug, a Stanley Uris rarity. They partied all night and ended up falling asleep there, much to most of their guardians' displeasure.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

“I still can’t believe you guys faked an emergency to get me over here.” Stan chuckled, setting the books back down. 

“Okay, in my defense…” Richie started. “It _was_ technically a surprise party. And it was Eddie’s idea.”

“Like hell it was!” The accused shouted. “You begged me to go along with it.”

“Yeah, well no one forced you to fake an asthma attack over the radio, Spaghetti head.” Richie poked him in the forehead, to which Eddie swatted him away. 

“THAT’S WHAT THAT WAS?” Stan wheezed. “I thought you got stabbed or something. Or that Bill had finally had enough of you two bickering over the hammock and went rabid like that dog in that one book of his.”

“Fair.” Bill shrugged.

They walked around the clubhouse for a bit more and they would find little bits of memorabilia that would bring them back to a simpler time. A deck of rubber-band bound cards from when they all went through a Pokemon phase, a harmonica that Mike had left behind, Bill’s and Ben’s ties that had been left strung up over a rafter where they had thrown them and had been unable to get it down from after they all ditched their senior prom together and Richie and Mike both refused to get them back for them. (Of course, Ben was 6 feet tall now and could get it down himself now after hitting his growth spurt late in college [Bill, who had been stuck at 5’7 since 9th grade, was not so lucky] but left it there for the same reason that one wouldn’t disturb any of the things in a tomb.). There was a pink and blue caboodle full of dried, expired play makeup that Beverly’s aunt had bought her for Christmas the previous year. 

She hadn’t been allowed to wear the stuff at home around her father (he said it made her look like a ‘painted whore’) and so she kept it there to practice with for the ‘real thing’ one day. Granted, she liked to practice more on whichever unwilling boy she could get her hands on more than her own face, there being no mirrors down there and all besides the crappy reflective foil the makeup came with, but it was what it was. Eddie had always been her favorite face to work on, despite his protests about the hundreds of unsafe chemicals in that stuff. Richie had cracked jokes the first time Eddie had gotten himself sat in Beverly’s little makeup studio but after she was finished and Richie had finally gotten to see the finished product, all jokes died in his throat, which had suddenly become dry. After that he was a staunch advocate of Eddie getting to be the one involuntarily inducted into the Marsh Makeover extravaganza. And even though he had to wash everything off before he left the sheltered safety of their little world down in the bunker, Eddie had to admit that the eyeshadow and shoplifted mascara _did_ make his eyes pop.

Eddie’s eyes caught sight of an old Nike box shoved haphazardly in a small dug out niche in the dirt wall. Something about it called to him and he got to his knees on the packed dirt floor and slid it out delicately. The orange box said in black sharpie

[ **_From: Richie To:Eds (Happy Birthday!!!)_ ** ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1jriJSQ3hnGZUa5MWUwHPO)

Surrounding the tag was several doodles of various things, from godzillas attacking cityscapes, that weird s thing that no one knew the name for, robots with lasers coming from their eyes, little lightning bolts littered alongside stars across the lid, and most endearingly of all was what was clearly a little stick figure family of the losers done in various colorful markers. In the center was one that had black curls and squares for eyes holding hands with one that was, annoyingly, much shorter; and wearing a red fanny pack and brown hair. Above them read: **R+E= BFFS 4 LYFE**. A small, yet growing, warm smile crossed his face. 

“Hey, Chee, get your ass over here and look at this!” He beckoned.

Richie stumbled over a white plastic lawn chair, muttering something about ‘little hoarders’ as he made his way over. He threw his arm over Eddie’s shoulders familiarly and leaned in. “Ooh, what’cha got there, Eds? Oh you sly dog, is it that Playboy I left stashed down here?” He teased.

“One, no. Two, ew.” (Hey, that rhymed!) “And three, why would you have had a magazine full of naked _women_ when you are, in your own words, ‘Gayer than a double rainbow over a drag bar in west hollywood on June 26.’?” Eddie asked in distaste.

“Well, we both know I was an incredibly repressed youth. I guess you could say that I was _scared straight._ ” He held up a hand for a high five, only to be left hanging, so he clapped his own raised hand.

“Don’t you literally get paid to be funny?” Eddie mocked.

“Well, you aren’t analyzing risks in your off ti- You know what? Forget I said anything. But yeah, why do you think I _left_ it here and apparently hid it and or threw it away?”

Eddie rolled his eyes as he opened the box. It was filled with multiple types of paper. Comics, Brown lunch bag type paper, some red and blue firework wrapping paper, and some colorful tissue paper. Underneath the junk was 5 cassette tapes. Each one had progressively nicer handwriting that said _‘Happy _th Birthday’_ followed by a year. Another memory washed over his and Richie’s view of the present.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

**_September 3, 1989_ **

It was the last birthday party that any of the Losers would have completely together for years. In a few weeks, Beverly would be leaving them all for Portland, but none of them knew that yet. All they knew right now was that today was Edward Kaspbrak’s 13th birthday. Miraculously, Eddie had managed to get his gargoyle of a mother to allow him to invite all of his friends to his party, not just the kids from sunday school that his mom made him sit awkwardly with in his room while she hosted her bi-weekly book club meet where the book was always the Bible. Of course, the last hour of the 2 hour meetings were usually dedicated to inter-community gossip, but whatever.

The party was winding down now and people were starting to finally filter out of the sterilized house, much to Sonia’s delight. Eventually, the only people left were the birthday boy and Richie, much to Sonia’s growing displeasure. The two were playing with Eddie’s new GI Joe action figures when she burst into the bedroom and looked Richie straight in the specs and said “Richie, your mother called, she said it’s getting late and she would like for you to come home.”

Richie knew that was a big fat lie. Bigger and fatter than Mrs.K, even. For one, a quick glance at Eddie’s bedside clock told him that it was only 5:21 on a Friday, and secondly Margret hadn’t called after her son since he was 8. As long as he woke up at home, Maggie and Wentworth Tozier basically let their son have free reign of the city. Except on They weren’t even bad or negligent parents, the 80’s _were just like that_ . But, unfortunately, he knew this was how the cookie crumbled. Sonia Kaspbrak, despite all of his jokes, had always had a strong disliking for Richie, ever since the two had become friends in kindergarten. Richie was too dirty, too loud, and too vulgar for her baby boy. And with the spread of some, let’s say _rumors_ about him, the type of rumors that got spread more with the fearful titterings of christain parents within earshot of their gossiping, god-fearing tween offspring than anything else; a bit to… into boys as well. But that last one was something that no one could technically prove to be true, considering that the source was a convicted serial killer in an insane asylum who threw homophobic slurs around like a normal person would throw around the word stupid and his cousin, so she just let it simmer under the surface.

As much as he didn’t want to leave, he knew that Sonia held the keys to the castle so he acquiesced and started to help Eddie put away his new presents into the meticulously labeled bins around his room. “Walk a little lady home?” He asked in his southern belle voice, not wanting their time together to be cut so short. Eddie rolled his eyes, but he agreed. 

The two rode their bikes home, half in a comfortable silence and half in a comfortable banter. By bike, it only took 2 minutes to reach the Tozier residence; far too short a distance to Richie, who was normally happy for the short bike ride. On the porch stood Maggie Tozier, genuinely surprised to see her kid home so early. Richie put down the kickstand to his bike and with a small wave, Eddie was about to turn around to go home again, but Richie’s eyes got wide as he suddenly remembered something.

“Eds! I almost forgot to give you your birthday present!” He shouted.

“What? I thought that you were the one who bought me that optimus prime?” Eddie asked in confusing.

“Yeah, that was your public gift. This one is a bit more personal.” Richie explained. “Wait here.” He instructed, blowing past Eddie and his mom as he ran into the house.”

Eddie stood there making awkward eye contact with Mrs.Tozier, sucked-in-white-person-grimace smile included. Finally Richie rushed out of the house again with the orange shoe box. 

“I figure that since, in Stan and mine’s culture, your officially now a ‘man’ you deserve to get special ‘adult’ gift.” Richie waggled his eyebrows as he thrust it into Eddie’s hands (well, hand, he still wore the white cast from their summertime adventure). Eddie stared wonderingly; his eyes lingering on the held hands of their respective stick figures, hoping that his face didn’t look as hot as it felt. He could only say one thing in response: “This better not be fucking porn.”

Richie giggled for a few seconds. “How _dare_ you, Eddie Spaghetti! You know the only woman I can get hard for anymore is your dear sweet mother. No other gal can quite compete.” He orated in a sing-song voice, earning him a small ‘fuck you’ from Eddie. He opened his mouth again, “Open it.” He simply said

Eddie opened it and saw it was full of garfield comic strips, his absolute favorites. The fact that Richie had gone through the trouble of saving so many weeks worth of his favorite comic was endearing enough, but he could tell by the weight of it that there was something else inside that wasn’t newspaper clippings. He dug through the box and found a clear plastic cassette tape with a piece of scotch tape that read _HAPPY 13TH BIRTHDAY: 1989_ in gold sharpie.

“What is this.” Eddie asked dumbly.

“It’s a mix tape! 13 songs on it for 13 years!” He explained, “Don’t worry, I also put some of your lame ass music alongside the best of the best.”

“You made this for me? That must have taken forever!” Eddie exclaimed, a warmth blooming in his chest over his personalized gift.

“Aw shucks, Edster, it ain’t no thang.” Richie said dismissively as if he _hadn’t_ spent several weeks putting it together.

“I’ll listen to it as soon as I get home!” Eddie promised, loading the box on top of his bike’s luggage rack. He was about to swing a leg over the top of the bike, but then he ran back to his friend and gave him a quick hug and a quiet, “Thank you.” before riding off into the sunset. The metaphorical sunset of course because it wasn’t even 5:30 yet.

Then and there, a very red faced Richie decided that he would make a million mixtapes for that boy if that was the reaction he would get every time.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

**_September 3, 1990_ **

Richie sat on the front step of the Kaspbrak residence with the birthday boy. Everyone else had gone home, but Eddie was still waiting on one final guest. Beverly Marsh. She had moved almost a full year ago with shaky at best correspondence, only replying if one of them mailed her first, and never sending any other follow up mail or reaching out first. Eddie had sent her an invite, he was sure of it. He even hand delivered it to the post office himself, in case his mother tried to claim it got ‘lost in the mail.’ He even got an RSVP back saying that she would come!

Bev never showed.

She hadn’t come to Bill, Richie, Ben, Stan, or Mike’s birthday’s either. Eddie didn’t know why he thought he would be any different or why he felt so much worse than when she didn’t come to the others’ parties. Perhaps it was because his birthday was the last one of the year, and the knowledge that if she didn’t come this year there was practically no chance she would come for his 15th birthday.

“Do you think…” Eddie sighed, looking at the stars starting to make their presence known in the darkening sky. “Do you think she’s… you know… forgotten about us?”

“Maybe.” Richie said bluntly. Eddie appreciated that from him. He had gone for so long with people lying to him, and it was still refreshing to hear some truth. Even if it was a truth he didn’t want for. “I can’t say I blame her though. I bet she’s living it up in Portland, right now. I bet she’s popular. She deserves that, y’know? She really should have been popular here, but somehow she ended up with us freaks and geeks.”

“I wouldn’t want to come back here either.” Eddie admitted, falling back to lie down. “When we leave this place, I hope I forget all about it too. I want to forget last summer, I want to forget Mr.Keene’s creepy ass pharmacy, I want to forget what my inhaler tastes like, I want to forget Bowers, hell, I just want to forget _Derry_.”

Richie laid down beside him. He turned his head to look Eddie in the eyes, “When _we_ leave?” He asked softly.

Eddie’s eyes went wide as if he either hadn’t realized that he’d said that, or as if he was surprised that that one little pronoun was what had stuck with Richie. “You’re an actual idiot if you think I’m gonna leave this place without you… you’re probably one of the only things here that I don’t ever want to forget.” His hand absentmindedly made its way into Richie’s scarred one, a reminder that some day that they _will_ have to go back. But for now, it was nice to dream about a life far, far away. He didn’t dare look him in the eye, until he felt the calloused fingers ever so slightly squeeze his palm. He looked to Richie, who was still intensely staring at him. 

...

Were they leaning in? 

It felt like they were leaning in.

 _‘God, I hope we’re leaning in.’_ Eddie said to no one but himself.

Suddenly it was like Richie realized what they were doing and quickly sat up quickly, his face a bright pink, unseeable in the darkness. “YOUR GIFT!” He shouted, reaching deep into one of his cargo shorts’ pockets and pulled out a palm sized rectangle of butcher paper. Eddie felt him let go of his hand and wondered if his hands had always been that cold. 

Eddie looked at the paper,it had “From: Richie To:Eds (Happy Birthday!!!)” written in red pen on top.Eddie unwrapped the parcel and it was an white cassette tape with red label with black writing that read _Happy 14th Birthday: 1990_

“14 Songs for fourteen noodly years.” Richie recited.

 _‘Oh yeah._ ’ Eddie thought. _‘I don’t want to forget this.’_

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

**_September 3, 1991_ **

For Eddie’s 15th birthday, his mother had dragged him to Bangor to have a “Family Party” with his aunts their husbands and children and his grandparents. It was an exhausting affair. The cake was sugar free. The presents were ‘practical’. The less said about the company, the better.

His aunts all fed into his mom’s hypochondria. They told her about all of the hot and hip new diseases and disabilities that he could develop at any moment. Growing pains? That’s rickets or perhaps it was early onset arthritis. Bouncing his legs? Maybe a sign of early parkinson's or ADHD. A slight cough? Did you know that there’s been a sharp increase of tuberculosis this year? 

Eventually he went to sit with his Uncles. Not much better. They were the exact type of men that they made the movie “ _9 to 5”_ about. The shittiest type of straight white men, in a time before shitty straight white men were even a mainstream issue. Those bunch thought they were a real gaggle of comedians. By the time Eddie moved seats, they had basically made at least one ‘joke’ degrading every single one of his friends. The only thing that kept him sane was the fun thought in the back of his mind of what each of his friends would do to these clowns (and Eddie does _not_ use that term liberally) if they were here with them. 

_‘Oh, Christ, this is_ “9 to 5” _.’_ Eddie thought.

He held back a smile as he thought of Beverly curb stomping them, like she did to It when It became her shitty dad, every time they made an inappropriate comment about the women they worked with or talked about how much they hated their wives, only to be met with high fives. He held back a grimace every time Uncle Marty told a shitty Jewish joke about one of the heads of HR in his office and he imagined Stan and Richie knocking his teeth in. He struggled to keep a blank face when Uncle John made rude remarks about a chubby black woman who was a cubicle across from him, and had to think quietly about Mike and Ben wrecking his shit. And it took him everything in him not to live out his own personal fantasy to deck Uncle Carl when he went on a rant about the ‘queers’ every time Eddie insisted that there were no girls at school that he had a crush on.

Being with his cousins was by far the worst. They ranged in age from 7 to 19 and Eddie had almost zero in common with them except for the ghost of his 12-year-old self that he saw in them. When Jolene, his youngest cousin, started to list off all of the shit the FDA allowed to go in chocolate after he offered her a Snickers bar he kept in his fanny pack, he wanted to shake her into reality. He looked at his oldest cousin, Harry, as he listed off all of his accomplishments like a trained animal and list off all of the details of his major (land surveying) when asked by Aunt Judy with a sickeningly sweet “Yes, Mommy.”, he promised himself that he would never let himself be that kid again. Worst of all, however, they were _boring_. They were the kind of people who Eddie could see calling an orange Flinstones Vitamin ‘spicy’.

He told a few of his cousins about his friends’ (more censored) adventures, including falling through a hole in a crackhouse and landing on a table, breaking his forearm and having to be driven back to his house in Mike’s produce basket on his bike. They promptly gasped and told him off for hanging out with ‘Ruffians’ (Who the dick said _ruffians_ anymore? Is this _Great Expectations_?)and listed off all of the dangers of every fun story he had. Jumping in the quarry with the Losers? Cryptosporidiosis, Bev probably could have given him bed bugs when she hand designed him a tee shirt out of old bedsheets, and Mike’s farm was probably full of swine flu. Everytime he made a joke, they looked at him like he was nuts or a disgusting weirdo. He blamed Richie, Stan, and Bill for that one.

Eddie ended up sitting alone in the guest bedroom, fidgeting with a Rubix cube keychain that Ben had gotten him last year for christmas. It was only a buck fifty, yet it was still more priceless to him than any of the million shit-colored pair of hypo-allergenic socks that his family had gotten him. The entire time he was wishing that he was spending his birthday with his _real_ family. He hid out in there until his mom called him into the living room to hug all of his family members before they could leave. 

It was 10:30 PM when they arrived home. Eddie rushed to take his shower, eager to wipe the stink of industrial disinfectant off his skin. He got into bed, ready to fall asleep after the world’s most boring birthday bash. Then he heard a _tap tap tap_ on the glass of his window. He almost screamed when he saw a dark figure standing in his window, but stifled it when his eyes adjusted to the dark and recognized the backlit halo of black curls and the glint of the moon off of a pair of what had to be the world’s thickest pair of glasses that could only belong to one person. He trudged over to the window and opened it to let his guest in.

“Richie? What are you doing here?” He yawned. 

“Oh shoot, I think I went to the wrong window; Eds, be a dear and kindly direct me to your mother’s room” Richie grinned, giving out a small grunt when Eddie punched him in the shoulder “I came to see my bestest friend in the whole wide world on his birthday. Is that such a crime?” He said innocently, batting his eyelashes.

“I thought we agreed that we were gonna celebrate my birthday tomorrow, though?” Eddie asked as he sat back on his bed. Richie flopped back wildly onto it as well, sending Eddie bouncing up. The asshole was only 15 and already closing in on 5’11 soon and, if the current rate of his metabolism was anything to go by, he still had a ways to go, leaving Eddie’s 5’6 ass in the dust.

“Nah, the other guys agreed. You know that me and verbal agreements don’t have a working relationship. SO, how was the rest of the Kaspbrak Clan, this fine afternoon?”

“UGH.” Eddie groaned loudly into a pillow, then bringing it down to clutch to his abdomen. “They are literally the absolute worst. I would rather throw myself into the sewer than do that again.”

“Well, would a birthday present make you feel any better?” Richie asked, now holding a rectangle covered in festive wrapping paper. Eddie already knew what it was as he carefully took it. “I may not like agreements, but I am a pretty big stickler for tradition. Besides, I figured that you would want one cool present before midnight. What did your family get you? No wait lemme guess!... Hypoallergenic socks!”

“How-” Eddie started before Richie cut him off.

“I know my Kaspbraks.” Richie simply explains. “Now, go on, open it!” 

Eddie carefully saved the wrapping paper as he unwrapped his gift. It, unsurprisingly was another mixtape. It was beige and the label said in green colored pencil _‘Happy 15th Birthday: 1991’._

Maybe this birthday wasn’t a total bust.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

**_September 3, 1992_ **

Eddie found the tape on his own that day. It was left inside the cassette player of his new hand-me-down minivan. He smiled when he popped open the player and saw the familiar writing of ‘ _Happy 16th Birthday: 1992’_

There was a sticky note left posted on his radio that said **“** **_From: Richie To:Eds (Happy Birthday!!!) 16 songs for 16 candles!”_ **

_God he was in it deep._

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

**_September 3, 1993_ **

On Eddie’s 17th birthday, he had gotten into a fight with his Mom. He had told her that he had applied to NYU. She was furious. When she demanded to know why there and not at Eastern Maine Community College in Bangor, where he would only be a 30 minute drive away from ‘home’, he couldn’t tell her about all of the trauma he had surrounding Derry. About how he was afraid to go to the bathroom, about how he could never forget the smell of decaying bodies mixed with grey water, how he couldn’t breathe for a second every time they drove past a storm drain, afraid to look by accident and see a pair of glowing orange eyes; and most of all he couldn’t tell her about how much he wanted to be as far away from the her and that fucking pharmacy, with it’s disgusting basement, overly bright flourecent lights, that lingering smell of saline, and ahorrible teen girl who run the front counter when her creepy dad was in the back crushing pills.

So he lied and said that he was going because that’s where Richie and Stan applied. Not a total lie. But not the whole truth. And he knew that Richie could get in. He could get into anywhere he applied to. For as big of a dumbass as Richie was, he was also probably one of the smartest people Eddie knew. It truly wasn’t fair how, ever since they had met in kindergarten, Eddie had never seen him get anything below a 99% without even trying. (And that was only because he forgot to write his name at the top.)

However, when Stan and Richie’s names came up, Sonia flew into a rage. She started on a rant about how _dare_ he want to leave her _(Oh-very-so)_ loving arms for a couple of big-nosed Christ killers and how Richie was a no good, dirty, rotten little fa-. The words didn’t even finish leaving her mouth and it was like the world around Eddie became static. It was like when he turned on the TV to a channel that they didn’t have. His ears were ringing. His throat grew tight and he felt himself grow pale and he wanted to throw up. He wanted to reach for a useless inhaler. But then he let his fear turn into something more useful. Rage.

So he yelled back. He yelled in defense of his friends. He yelled in defense of himself. He yelled in defense of Richie. He yelled because it felt good. He needed a good yell.

Unfortunately, so did Sonia.

After she was finished yelling, she went upstairs; Eddie’s small wrist wrapped in the iron grip of her pudgy fingers, demanding to know what she was about to do. She answered by throwing him into his room and slamming the door behind him, telling him he could come out when he learned to be a ‘good boy, _like you used to be_ ’. He sat on the floor in stunned silence, only able to get up when he heard the sound of a chair being dragged across the floor and the rattle of his door knob. He got up to open his door to leave and felt something physically blocking his door. He once again felt his throat tightening. 

He yelled again. This time not in anger. Okay maybe quite a bit in anger, but more so in fear and disbelief. Then his shouts turned into ones of desperation, then his shouts turned into cries, then the minutes turned into an hour, then the hour turned into three. A look at the clock told him that he had missed his ‘party’, which was supposed to have just been him and the guys going to see _The Fugitive_ at The Aladdin. 

He sat in bed, the tears dried on his cheeks now. He heard a familiar tap on his window and his heart soared as he saw Richie’s face pressed against the glass. He ran to let him in, practically dragging him in with a hug. He could feel his tear tracks about to stain Richie’s horrific mustard colored button up with the black polkadots. 

“Woah! Yowza, Eds!” Eddie heard Richie exclaimed as he stumbled in. Richie felt his friend trembling against him and slowly raised his arms to wrap them around him as well, almost unsure if this type of intimacy was allowed even in the privacy of Eddie’s bedroom. Richie felt Eddie’s breath hitching and slowly used one of his hands to draw him hold his head closer into his chest and the other to rubs small, slow circles into his back. “We were waiting for you but you never showed. The others sent me to go check on you. I saw your hot ride left in the driveway and I knew you were still home. What’s wrong man?”

“She- She-” Eddie wheezed. “She locked me in here.” he gasped out.

“She what?!” Richie gasped. He lowered Eddie’s shaking form back down onto his bed as he went back to test the door himself and, sure enough, it was still locked. “That bitch. Why the fuck did she do that?” He asked angrily.

“It’s because- It’s because I applied to NYU.” Eddie sobbed, clutching his knees to his chest. “I can never leave her, Chee. No matter how hard I try. I’m going to be stuck in this stupid house for fucking ever, taking fake pills, probably going to have to marry some _girl_ that she picks out for me because she want’s me to marry one of her equally fucked up friend’s kids, and then I’ll be expected to have _kids_ with her so my mom will be happily feeding them the same lies and sugar pills she gave me.”

“No way is that true, Eds.” Richie told him firmly, putting a hand on Eddie’s knee. “You’ll get out of here, even if I have to smuggle you with me in a pet carrier and a cat costume. We’ll go to New York together whether she likes it or not. We’ll get in a fast car, skip town, and get an apartment together in the city.”

“I’ll get a tattoo! As many as I can fit on my body! Maybe some piercings! At a place that sterilizes their needles of course, Jenny Mikkelson told me that her brother’s friend’s cousin got a tat for cheap and got hepatitis from a dirty needle. I’ll get a job that’s not helping Mr.Keene restock shelves! I’ll meet a… I’ll meet _someone_ that I actually like, not just who she wants me to like.” Eddie was getting very excited at the idea of rebellion via living on his own with Richie.

“Hell yeah! Now let’s get out of here, we can still catch the next showing if we hurry.” Richie said, pulling him up. It was hit Eddie how much of a height difference they had now (Richie had finally topped out at 6’2 and Eddie was still middling at 5’6) before it hit him about what Richie had said. 

“How can we leave? The door is jammed.” Eddie asked

“She didn’t lock the window, did she?” Richie grinned.

“I can’t jump out of a second story window!” Eddie screeched, mind involuntarily going back to 1989 and his broken arm. 

“Don’t be so dramatic. We aren’t _jumping out of a second story window.”_ Richie scoffed. “We’re gonna climb onto your roof and then shimmy down the tree that grows from you back yard.”

“That’s not much better, dumbass!”

“Oh please, do you really think I wouldn’t catch you if you fall?” Richie asked seriously. 

_Oh_

“You're only, like, 110 soaking wet anyways.” Richie chuckled. “It’s like holding a few grapes.”

“Oh fuck off, let’s go.” Eddie rolled his eyes as he stood up to go to follow Richie out of the window. Suddenly, Richie stopped halfway out of the window with a soft ‘hold up.’ and threw Eddie a cassette tape wrapped in blue tissue paper that was tied off at the top with a ribbon and a tag that read “ _From: Richie To:Eds (Happy Birthday!!!)”_ . Eddie could see through the thin paper “ _Happy 17th Birthday: 1993_ ”

“Almost forgot your gift.” he grinned cheekily. “17 songs for the dancing queen. Now we can go. Stan, Bill, Mike, and Ben can only loiter around the Scoops Ahoy for so long without buying anything.”

The ice cream never tasted so sweet.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

**_September 3, 1994_ **

It was their senior year on Eddie’s 18th birthday, his last birthday in Derry. In a year, he would be in New York to celebrate. He would be surrounded by his peers in a tattoo parlor, about to get his first tattoo. To him, Maine would only be a state where he could faintly recall growing up when he was asked. Derry was to be a spot of mental static, broken up with memories of him and a boy with eyes that were such a dark blue that they were almost black, and a love of bad nicknames. 

But right now, he was sitting in a bunker in the middle of the woods, sitting in a hammock that had been graciously allowed to him with no fight, holding a red cupcake from Walmart with an “18” candle lit on top, surrounded by five other 18 year old boys singing happy birthday in an off-key manner, each holding in their laps their gifts that they planned to give him.

Richie’s bag had 2 gifts inside. A $50 blockbuster gift card inside of a novelty Hallmark card that said “From: Richie To:Eds (Happy Birthday!!!) and a cassette tape with the familiar title of “Happy 18th Birthday: 1994” He didn’t say anything about it. The giving of the tapes had always been a private exchange. It was intimate and it was _theirs_. He didn’t see why this year would be any different.

If Eddie could remember it by the time he turned 19, he would call it his favorite birthday of all time.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Eddie didn’t even register the tears building in his eyes as he relived every one of his birthdays he had in Derry. “I can’t believe I forgot about these.” He whispered. “You know, the first week of college I about tore the dorm apart looking for these. I nearly cried when I couldn’t find them because they were so special to me. I guess I forgot about them after that. I cannot believe that they are _still_ down here, 22 years later.”

“I can’t believe _I_ forgot about them.” Richie gasped. “Do you know how hard it was to put 93 songs onto cassette tapes? 13-year-old adhd-riddled Richie nearly threw up trying to figure how to put the first _13_ on there. We didn’t have YouTube tutorials back then!”

Eddie rolled his eyes, “Yeah, well. No one forced you into it, Trashmouth.”

“It really wasn’t that terrible, after that.” Richie admitted, rubbing his stubble.

“It wasn’t?” Eddie asked.

“No, it wasn’t. Not if it was for you. You smiling was enough to make it worth it.” Richie smiled tenderly.

“That’s pretty gay, dude.” Eddie giggled.

Richie lightly shoved him. “Shut up! Now let’s see what 13-year-old Richie thought was good tunes for a newly 13-year-old Spaghetti Head.” He said, plucking out the oldest of the tapes. (Earning him a nostalgic “Don’t call me that!”)

Richie turned to look at the Losers, who whipped their heads back to look at random items as if to prove that they _totally, definitely_ weren’t watching them (“This was a really good flashlight, wasn’t it Mike?” “Yep, they really don’t make them like this anymore.”)

“Yo! Guys! We got anything with a cassette player in here?” He shouted out to them. Everyone looked around for one and, eventually, Beverly dug out a silver, battery powered boombox. Richie took it from her and popped the cassette in, throwing aside a NKOTB album that Ben dived to catch.He let his finger rest over the play button. “Let’s pray that the batteries in this thing aren’t dead.”

He set it down and apparently someone out there was listening, because the first, tinny notes of “Eddie My Love” crackled to life. Richie’s face went extremely red, as did Eddie’s. Eddie was once again transported to his thirteen year old body, lying in bed, Orange foam headphones on, (without Sonia’s knowledge, of course. Loud music can cause tinnitus Eddie-Bear!) just as red as he was now, wondering what it meant.

He was pulled out of the memory by an outstretched hand belonging to one Richie Tozier. “May I have this dance, Eddie my love.” He smirked. Now, nobody was trying to bother pretending to not be looking. If Eddie said no, Stan decided he would finally fulfill his father’s dream for him and become a rabbi on the spot, just so he could forcefully wed them on the spot. 

Eddie looked at the hand for a moment before smiling and taking it. Richie yanked him into a waltzing position, one hand on Eddie’s waist, one still clutching his hand. There wasn’t a whole lot of room to dance in the crowded room, so they stood there, swaying chest to chest, moving in a 2x2 circle. “You still suck at dancing.” He joked against Richie’s chest, deciding that he didn’t mind the height difference for once.

“You say that; but out of the two of us, who was the one that bothered to go to 2 weeks of dance lessons?”

Beverly fondly reminisced back to when they were kids and the local community center was offering free dance lessons to the local youths. She had found the poster for it with and roped Richie into signing up with her and they were (in her opinion) the hottest dancers on the floor. Ben and Bill were so jealous of them back then. Come to think of it, Eddie was pretty jealous, too. Although, she remembered the class being taken together for a month. She had to leave before the class was finished and Richie said he was going to drop out because “There ain’t no finer ho-down partners than you, Ms. Bevaline.”

The song was ending. Eddie’s brown eyes locked with Richie’s blues. Richie lowered his head and Eddie started to raise himself up on his tippy toes to meet him as the last lyrics faded out

_Please Eddie don't make me wait too long…_

They could almost bump noses when a wild trumpet blared and the voice of Ray Parker Junior rang out _“Ghostbusters!”_ Startling them apart with a silent groan from the others.

“Did you really follow this song after the other?!” Eddie squeaked, torn from the moment.

Richie was laughing his ass off “In my defense! -wheeze- In my defense! You were obsessed with that movie!”

_“Still!”_

The group looked at each other with a new exhaustion in their eyes.

It was time for a new place and some new tactics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank y'all so much for the lovely comments! They all warm my dumb baby heart and inspire me to update. Also, whoops! Angst! Find my Tumblr @space-is-out-there if you want to ask me anything, talk about it, or just want to virtually hang!
> 
> If y'all couldn't tell I did make the tapes into a spotify play list which you can find here: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1jriJSQ3hnGZUa5MWUwHPO
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!


	3. Old fights, new coping mechanisms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: MENTIONED HOMOPHOBIA

The next day they actually managed to achieve the goal of finding a place to have a nice meal as a group. Not Chinese of course. It was an old Italian restaurant that had stood since their parents were only a gleam in _their parents’_ eyes. The place was practically a Derry institution. Five generations of patrons had scrawled their names on the alabaster walls. Even though they hadn’t eaten there as a full group in almost 3 decades, all of the Losers could still find their place on the wall over their favorite booth. Currently, Stan and Richie were reliving old times by reviving their almost four decades old argument over the ethicalness of eating Chicken Parmesan.

“I am _TELLING YOU_ , Stan. Chickens. **Don’t**. Have. Milk!” Richie yelled, punctuating each word with a clap.

“And _I’m_ telling _you,_ Richie, it’s a RABBINIC PROHIBITION!” Stan shouted back.

“Uh~ Is it in the Talmud? The Torah? NO!” Richie scoffed. “Nowhere in the regulations of Kosher does it even _mention chicken.”_

“Have you ever even _heard of_ _the_ Shulhan Arukh?!” Stan shot back. 

“Have you ever heard of kissing my a-”

“Neither of you guys even ordered Chicken Parm!” Eddie put himself between the two. It was true. Stan had ordered spaghetti and Richie had gotten fettuccine alfredo. “You two have been having this exact same argument since we ate here when we were eight!”

“Imma be real with you Spagheds.” Richie said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. _(“DON’T CALL ME THAT!”)_ “A group of Jews is called an argument. Our cultural _sport_ is arguing. We would argue with the lord if given the chance… Come to think of it, you would make a pretty good Jew, Eddie.”

“Back to what I was saying **before** we ordered.” Bill firmly re-assereted his dominance over the group as the leader. “What’s the plan for today?”

“I was kind of wanting to check out the dam that we built as kids.” Ben excitedly explained his plan excitedly.

“You mean that me and Stan help you build while these assholes sat on their asses and watched.” Richie snorted into his drink. “Microphone gets a free pass because he, like, chopped the wood with his bare hands, though. Eddie yelled from the sidelines about how dangerous it all was and was on us like a mama hawk or something if we got so much as a splinter, and these two-” He gestured between Bev and Bill “Were basically just cheerleaders.”

“In my defense, I tried to help.” Beverly argued “But because Ben was too much of a gentleman to let me do anything. I would offer to get a hammer and all of the sudden he’s already there like ‘I’ve got it Beverly!’.” She giggled, much to Ben’s red faced embarrassment.

“In my defense-“ Bill started, he tapped his chin a few times in a ritual to draw his memories of the day to the surface. “- I was lazy. Now let’s just pay the bill and check out if the dam I didn’t help build is still standing.”

So after splitting the bill 6 ways (Eddie paid for Richie after Richie patted himself down several times only to realize he left his wallet on the bed at the BnB. “How do you even function as an adult?” He huffed in almost fond exasperation.) They packed themselves into Mike’s practical minivan and rode towards the woods.

They went to the blocked off section of river with legs on autopilot, pointing out familiar landmarks along the way.

“I pissed behind that tree”

“I used to smoke on that rock.”

“I remember seeing Black-capped chickadee in that very nest!”

“I can still see my kite in that tree!”

“I totally carved my initials into that stump!”

Finally they reached the dam. The logs had held up surprisingly well for being 27 years old . It seemed that funny enough that a family of Beavers had taken up residence inside of it. Richie snapped a photo of Ben practically bending the others in half to point out the intricate details of the dam that they all definitely remembered because he was there but he seemed so excited about it that none of them could stand to take that giddiness from him.

“That’s totally going on my Instagram.” Richie said. “Ooh wait until Twitter finds out I grew up with Beverly Marsh and Bill Denbrough! I guarantee at least the number 7 spot on the trending page.”

“Wow, Rich, what are we? Chopped liver?” Stan’s asked dryly.

“Ah yes, look at this odd group. One of the leading names in horror, a high end fashion designer, a comedian-slash-actor, a small town librarian, an architect, an accountant and a risk analyst. Gee whiz fellas, I think that's the guy who files my taxes!” Richie jibed, putting the filters on the picture and tagging everyone appropriately.

“Uhhh Richie? Don’t know if you wanna do that bud.” Mike shuffled his feet and pushed aside a piled patch of leaves and revealing a yellow ‘no trespassing, private property.’ sign that was attached to a felled metal signpost. “I feel like thats like posting a picture of the house you’re about to rob on Facebook.”.

“Oh please, Michelangelo, I’ve gotten away with much more illegal stuff than accidental trespassing.” Richie winked as he posted the photo and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

“Oh my God, you gave TMZ a field day back in your 20’s.” Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly remembering being on the couch and a picture of Richie swinging a beer bottle at a gay marriage protester in ‘08 and verbally saying out loud to no one “What an idiot.”

“Uh, you and the white privilege pals and your 6 figure salaries might be able to get out of accidentally B-and-E-ing but I don’t think that I’d have quite the same amount of pull with the local Derry law enforcement.” Mike’s brows furled.

“Fine, we can get out of here.” Beverly amicably supplied. “So now what?”

Richie stood up straight and cracked his knuckles and then pulled up his notes app on his phone. “I have compiled here a list of individuals that I would very much like to rub my success in the faces of. Ah-ha-hem” He cleared his throat.

Ben cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t know Rich, doesn’t that seem a little… I don’t know… _immature?_ ”

Beverly put a tender hand on his chest. “Now hold on a minute, babe. Let’s see where he’s going with this first.”

Ben whipped his head to Bill next. Surely, their leader would be able to direct them to a more adult activity like, he didn’t know, _white water rafting?_ That was something that functional adults did on vacation together, right? But Big Bill had his hands steepled in front of his face in considerate concentration on what Richie was about to say. He then turned to Stan, their logical straight man. Surely, he would be able to see reason in the absurdity of proving yourself to a bunch of nobodies from highschool, right? **_Right?_ ** Wrong, apparently. Both Stan and Mike gave him a look of ‘Ok, but let’s hear him out.’ Finally he turned to look next to Richie, to Eddie, to give a ‘Come collect yo mans’ look; but Eddie was already in Richie’s space bubble, looking over the list with a look of approval.

“Okay, numero uno.” Richie put up his index finger. “Greta Bowie-Keene.” Richie said with a smile.

“Oh my fucking God. She hated me so much in middle school. She thought that I was sleeping with her crush, David Hernandez.” Beverly groaned.

“ **_Davey H._ ** ? AKA _Greasy Dave?_ ” Eddie wheezed. “That guy was, like, a 5... _tops…_ if he took a shower that day.”

“I KNOW, right?”Beverly snickered into her hand. “But he _did_ live on West Broadway and his parents owned three Chuck E. Cheeses.”

“When I went to get my token I don’t even think she remembered me!” Eddie gasped. “Also, it’s really weird, looking back on it, that a 13 year old was being slut shamed. Like, we were kids. _None of us_ were having sex.”

“W-” Richie opened his mouth only to be met with a ‘beep beep’ from around the table.

“I didn’t even say anything!” Richie moaned.

“You were about to say that was both untrue and grossly disturbing, weren’t you?” Stan redundantly asked.

“... I plead the fifth…”

“We all know that you didn’t even have your first kiss until Amber Coleman in sophomore year during a game of spin-the-bottle at a homecoming party that we crashed.” Eddie rolled his eyes. The _‘I remember because I saw you guys from across the room and I wanted to both rip my hair out and go push her out of the way and take over myself.’_ went unsaid.

“Ugh, don’t remind me!” Richie put his face into his hands “Her mouth smelled like Taco Bell and she kept trying to slip me the tongue, but I was, y’know.” He did a little limp-wristed hand motion, “and was keeping my mouth as closed as possible. So it was almost entirely her licking my closed mouth while I closed my eyes and pretended she was a cute boy.”

“Dude, did you even _know_ how insanely jealous 10th grade Bill was of you? Shit, she was the hottest senior in school and of course the only one of us to get to kiss her was our only gay friend.” Bill huffed as he slumped back in his seat.

“Wait, why does Richie get to have the monopoly on being the gay friend?” Eddie quirked an eyebrow.

“So you _are_ gay?” Bill asked, looking pointedly at Richie in a manner which he hoped conveyed, ‘ _HESGAYTOOHESGAYTOOHESGAYTOO!!!GO GET YOUR MAN!!!_ ’ and got his thigh and forearm pinched by both Beverly _and_ Stan. He winced internally but stayed quiet.

“Um? Yes? I mean props to you for not assuming, but I thought it was pretty obvious?” Eddie looked super confused.

“ _Whaaaa~”_ Richie made a dumb noise. “It wasn’t obvious to me! Why between the short-shorts, several unsatisfactory relationships with women, the inability to even _talk about_ kissing girls without looking sick, and the time you told me you were gay, I can’t think of a single hint towards your homosexual inclinations!” Richie gasped in a scandalized voice.

“Oh fuck off, they are _not_ that short. Let’s just go back to the list! Greta and who else?” Eddie crossed his arms and rolled his eyes and went back to leaning into Richie’s bubble.

“Oh, add Marcia Fadden and Sally Mueller!” Beverly interjected.

“Nice! Love this vengeful vibe!” Richie said, punching in the names.

“Put on Joey Veraman in the too. Remember him? He used to tell people to hide their lunch money from us and put ham in our desks?” Stan suggested.

“Trust me, already on the list.” Richie wickedly grin.

“Oh! Peter Gordon! That rich dickbag somehow put my bike on the roof like five times and told me to just get a new one when I cried the first time.” Bill grumbled.

“I remember having to come down to the school in the middle of the night to help y’all get Silver down!” Mike snickered. “While you’re adding to the list, add Kelly and Hector Goddard! They would train their dog to attack me every time I rode by their house on my meat delivery route.”

“Done and done! Haystack! You’re up to bat, man! Surely there someone who was especially assholish to you, pre-abs and seven figure bank account.”

“I don’t know…” Ben awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

“Don’t be shy, baby.” Beverly reassuringly grabbed his shoulder.

“Yeah! C’mon, I know there’s at least _one_ person in this town that you want to dunk on with your sick ass architecting firm and your goddamn _yacht off the coast of Monaco_.” Richie encouraged. “I’m pretty sure I’m richer than you and I don’t have a yacht! Just one name! Ben! Ben! Ben!” He chanted, sparking the rest of the car to follow suit. Ben’s face went a startling shade of crimson behind his hands that blocked his face.

“Fine! Is uh… Gary Sosa still living around here, Mikey?’ Ben asked. 

“I think so, yeah. He works as a manager for the department store down on Hollister Drive.” Mike smiled, clapping Ben on the back, while Richie smiled and typed Gary’s name into the list as they made their way back towards the car.

“Okay how about Noelle- oof!” Richie exclaimed as he ran into a solid mass, nearly knocking the both of them over. He looked up and met light blue eyes, achingly familiar. Richie stumbled back out of this guy’s space bubble and could see the bigger picture now. Oh shit. It’s the popo.

“Richie Tozier?” The cop asked.

“Uh, yessssss?” Richie squeezed out from behind his teeth

“Oh my god! Me and the boys at the station love your stuff!” The cop looked giddy. “Well… mostly the older stuff.” He sheepishly admitted.

“Yeah. I figured.” Richie remarked. The ‘It was my closet/semi-misogynistic years.’ went unsaid.

“It’s just that it’s not common for someone from Derry to make it big, y’know? Gotta have that civic pride.” The officer chuckled 

“So, uh officer...” Richie asked, “What are you doing down here?”

“I could ask you the same, Mr.Tozier. Are you aware that this is private property?”

“It _is?”_ Richie feigned genuine surprise. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m revisiting good ol’ Derry for the first time in _years_ and I’m going around looking at all of the places I visited as a kid. A lot’s changed in 22 years, you know?”

“I’m surprised that he hasn’t mentioned that cop’s mom yet.” Bill whispered to the group.

“Would it really surprise you to know that Richie’s learned to weasel his way out of trouble with cops?” Eddie quirked an eyebrow and a look went around the group that said, no, it would not.

“Well, I suppose it was an accident and it doesn’t look like anything got hurt. I guess we could just forget about all of this.” The officer shrugged and Richie’s shoulders untensed. “Hey, Mr.Tozier, do think you could do me a favor?”

“Heh, uh, yeah officer. What is it officer?” Richie asked, trying not to panic a little with the thought the cop wasn’t about to pull a ‘got ‘em!’ on him and say something like ‘Great! Put on these handcuffs!’

“I know you probably get this alot but do you think you could sign this for me?” The cop asked as he pulled out the little booklet normally reserved for writing tickets.

“Sure! Anything for the boys in blue!” Richie had to suppress an eye roll at his own boot licker-ness. Anything to avoid jail time. He took the pen and notebook from the policeman “All right, ‘To my biggest fan, officer…’” 

“Bowers.”

Richie’s eyes shot to the officer’s name tag. Fuck. Bowers. He started to sweat and his writing hand grew a little shaky. That’s why those eyes held such familiarity. “Connor?” He asked warily.

Connor’s looked a little shocked. “I wondered if you remembered me…” He rubbed the back of his neck and Richie caught a glimpse of a wedding ring.

“You uh… you look good.” Richie’s throat felt dry. “I, um, I see you got married.”

Connor looked a little red. “Uh-well, you too, I guess. I uh, see you on the news sometimes.., I see you’re still… you know… you.” His eyes darted to Eddie and something washed over his face that none of the others could describe.

“Uh, yeah.... I see you got married. Good for you.” Richie looked pointedly at his wedding ring.

Connor himself looked a tad surprised when Richie mention the ring. “Yeah- Sarah. She- She’s great.”

“Oh _she_ is?” Richie quirked an eyebrow.

Connor furrowed his eyebrows and frowned a little. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Richie raised his hands defensively. “Woah! Easy tiger! I’m just a lil’ surprised that you have a… wife. Considering… y’know…”

Connor’s body went into a defensive position. “Yeah, Richie, I _grew up_ .” He averted his eyes from Richie’s. “I don’t play _childish games_ or go through dumb _phases_ anymore. It’s not my fault that you clearly haven’t actually gotten serious in 27 years.”

Connor looked at Eddie again, this time with a little more disdain. “Or that you decided to hold others back with you.”

Richie’s face went a little white and his hands felt cold, clammy and shaky. He felt his mouth grow dry as he pushed the notebook back into Officer Bowers’s chest. “I think that we should get going.”

Officer Bowers looked at the autograph for a few seconds with the same unreadable emotion as before on his face. He recomposed himself “Yeah. I think you should.”

“Losers! Roll out!” Richie motioned, never breaking eye contact with Connor. The Losers looked confused but followed him as he stomped away from the scene. Eddie looked back at where Richie just stood and saw the cop just standing there, staring at the notebook.

Finally they made it to Mike’s minivan. They sat there in silence for a few seconds. Beverly broke the silence. “Richie… Who was that?”

Richie took a second to close his eyes and take a deep breath and felt the blood return to his face. _It’s okay, you have nothing to hide from them anymore. We don’t have any dirty little secrets anymore._

“That was Connor Bowers.” His voice just barely shook.”

Bill would have done a spit take had he been drinking. “He-Henry Bowers’s cousin?

“The very same. He was also my first boyfriend. And my first ex.” Richie clarified. Suddenly the whole car erupted out into loud questioning, with Eddie seeming to be the loudest.

“Your first _what_?” Eddie asked, voice huffy with what anyone could discern as jealousy.

“Yeah, we dated for like, a few weeks, during the summer of ‘89.” Richie shrugged nonchalantly, but inside he was feeling a strange happiness. This was his first time actually getting to talk with the others about being gay, not just gay jokes and gushing about Eds openly around them. He had longed for this type of thing when they were kids. He always nodded and played along with whichever girl had been declared ‘the hottest girl ever’ by the group back then. Whenever Ginger Greene got pointed out to him in her gym uniform with a whispered _“Oh shit, she’s sooo hot._ ” All he could do was nod and go _“Yep. Uh-huh.”_ followed by a quick joke about boobs, followed by a groan and a drop of the subject. All he could do was that and, of course, avoid letting his eyes wander to the bleachers of the gym, where Eddie sat out of class bored out of his skull, because Mrs.K still wouldn’t let him participate in gym class. All he could do was that and keep his trashmouth shut from saying _“Sure bud, but have you_ seen _Eddie’s legs in those shorts? Everytime he bends down to pick up and throw back someone’s stray ball, I have to stop myself from having a damn stroke when the blood goes to my-”_

Anyways, his youth was rather lonely.

“A few weeks? Jesus, Rich, that’s almost a full month you were with this guy! And you never told m- any of us?! What did you even see in- let me repeat- _Henry Bowers’s cousin?_ ” Eddie’s face was red now.

“Awwww. Eds! If I didn’t know any better, I would say that you’re _jealooouuuus.”_ Richie practically sang.

“Wha- I- No!” Eddie crossed his arms with a small huh.

“Even if you were, ʷʰᶦᶜʰ ʸᵒᵘ ᵗᵒᵗᵃˡˡʸ ᵃʳᵉ, there’s no need to be. We mostly just held hands in private and played street fighter together and I think he kissed me on the cheek one time in a dark movie theatre. But then, I guess, the family thought it was high-time they meet the boy that Connor was spending so much time with; because one day during our _super romantic_ Street Fighter sesh, Henry showed up at the arcade. I had no idea why Bower’s was there; but I guess instead of playing it off as a normal ‘guys being dudes’ situation, Connor overcorrected by calling me a fairy and breaking up with me by saying, and I quote.” He pitched-up his voice and made it a little nasalier “‘ _I’m not your fucking boyfriend.’_ and then he never made eye-contact with me again.”

“Jeez, that’s awful Rich.” Ben comforted him. “I’m _so_ sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell us.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Richie grimaced. He felt Eddie wrap his hand in his own in a quiet solidarity. It may have been 2016, and most of the 80’s homophobes had either died, gotten the fuck over themselves, or just resigned themselves to angrily @-ing him on Twitter, but the homophobes that were left were bat-shit, rabies-level insane. Adrian Mellon’s body was still in cold storage at the morgue for fuck’s sake. “At the time though we weren’t speaking to each other, and Eddie’s mom kept him inside 24/7, and I hadn’t figured out how to sneak him out of his house yet. After that though, with the exception of Stan, who wouldn’t even remember I existed in 5 years; I was pretty much padlocked into the closet until I was 27.”

“God, Richie. I know probably have said this a million times, but I’m really sorry that I got into that fight with you and split us up for so long.” Bill apologized.

“No dude, I was a fucking _dick_ as a kid. Still kind of am, but that’s beside the point. I’m just saying, I probably would’ve taken the first swing I could at my big teeth too if I were you.” Richie jokes. “Wow, this is why you guys need me for levity, huh? The moment I get serious the minivan turns into a goddamn hearse.”

The group laughed as Mike started the car and drove away from the woods.

\------------------------

Stan was facetiming his wife late at night before he went to bed. “So, you’re absolutely sure you can make a layover at Bangor International, pick me up in a rental in Derry, and then we can head off to Buenos Aires?” Stan asked for clarification.

Patty rolled her eyes at her husband’s fretting. “Of course, Baby. I want to meet your old friends. I don’t think you’ve ever told me about your childhood. I bet you were a little wild child.”

“Oh yeah, me and my gang ran these streets.” Stan joked. “We were actually the biggest losers in Derry, hard as that is to believe.”

“You? A loser? Nooooo.” Patty said in mock disbelief. “I thought for sure that math nerds with a puzzle and bird watching hobby would have been homecoming king!”

“Yeah the most ‘cool kid’ thing we did was shoplift cigarettes that only two of us even smoked and one pack of condoms before prom that none of even used.” Stan reminisced fondly

“You didn’t use a condom on prom night? I’m shocked Stanley Uris. I better not find out that the actual reason you’re there is to meet my secret step child for the first time.” Patty said sternly with a glint of humor in her eyes.

“Beep Beep, Pats.” Stan said on instinct.

“Beep beep?” Patty quirked an eyebrow at the odd expression.

“Oh- it’s just something that we used to say to our friend Richie when he went too far with a joke. Something tells me that you guys are gonna get on really well.” Stan said.

“Oh no Stan, better not let me get too chummy or I might leave you for this guy.” Patty jokes.

“Unlikely, considering he’s very openly gay and definately hopelessly in love with our friend Eddie.” Stan points out.

“Oh, childhood sweethearts, how cute.”

“Please, I wish, none of us have seen each other since graduation and yet they still act like two awkward teenagers who can’t figure out if they like each other mutually.”

“Sounds awful baby. Maybe when I get down there, I can straighten them out for you.” Patty cracked her knuckles for effect.

“If anyone could do it, it’d be you babylove.” Stan gave her the same heart eyes he’d been giving her since junior year of college. Suddenly he broke out of his haze when he heard a loud noise from down the hall… from Richie’s room… It sounded like a loud shout followed by a thud and it worried Stan. He looked at Patty and did his Oscar winning best to keep the worry out of his voice. “I uh- I gotta check on Richie. I think he partied a bit to hard and needs help getting into his room. Goodnight, Pats, love you.”

“Night night, Stan. And tell my stepkid hi for me. Love you, bye.” She sleepily laughed before she hung up

Stan dropped his phone on the bed and made his way to Richie’s room, where he stopped outside of Richie’s room, where the door was already cracked open. Eddie had at some point gotten into the bedroom before he had and was sitting next to Richie on the floor. Richie, who was wearing a too-small tee shirt advertising an old tour he went on and boxers and two different colored socks, was white as the beds sheets wrapped around his legs and sweat plastered his curls to his face. He was shaking and his breathing was ragged as he leaned into Eddies gentle touch and he moved the hair from his eyes and carefully placed the glasses on his face.

“It’s okay, Chee. I’m right here. I'm right here.” Eddie whispered like they were the only two people in the world. “What’s wrong?”

“I- Shit- I’m- It’s so stupid.” Richie self-deprecated “I had… a nightmare and I fell off the bed.”

“Rich… no, that’s not stupid. We went through so much. More than any one, much less any kid should have ever gone through. It’s normal that we’ll have some trauma.”

“I- I just- it was so real, Eds. I thought…” Richie grimaced.

“What is it Richie, what did you think? It’ll make you feel better.” Eddie softly requested.

“When we were in the sewers, fighting It, I got caught in the deadlights. Why am I telling you that, you know that. Well, when I went under I saw- I saw-” Richie looked like he had something caught in his throat and sniffed back what Stan could only assume were tears at this distance. 

“Take your time.” Eddie encouraged.

“I saw you _die,_ Eddie! Okay!” Richie sobbed, pressing his face into the crook of Eddie’s shoulder and neck. “You died in the sewers, because you were distracted saving me.” 

“Is that what you saw in your dream?” Eddie asked. “Me?”

“Not just that, that was more like the exposition.” Richie sighed. “The dream… I was back at that arcade with Connor. He’d just outed me. I ran to the park…. I didn’t tell you guys this part, but then the clown was there… It was like It knew and It mocked me… called it my dirty little secret.”

“God, I’m about to go kill that son of bitch.” Eddie growled, “I can't believe Connor did that to you. Who would ever let you go?”

“Well if I look at my early love life, quite a few people.” Richie weakly chuckled. 

“What a bunch of idiots.”

“Then what happened was… It was mocking me. And then everything morphed and then we were back in the cave. And Pennywise was holding you and mocking me again… for thinking I could ever be happy. And then he- he-” Richie’s eyes started to water again and his glasses fogged up. The words came out forced and choked and terrible. Richie once again buried his face into Eddie’s torso.

Eddie ran his fingers in spirals across the expanse of Richie’s spine. “You’re getting snot into my shirt.” He tried to lighten the mood in the same manner Richie would if he were in this situation. Except he is not Richie, so this attempt at levity falls flat. Nonetheless, Richie appreciates the effort anyways. 

“Will you just sit here with me for a little bit?” Richie asked.

“Of course.” Eddie replied, putting his unmoving arm around his companion in a side hug.

Stan backed away slowly from the cracked inn door. Ben, Beverly, and Bill slowly were shambling out of their rooms in a groggy haze, clearly having just been woken up from their slumbers and pulled from their rooms by the noise as Stan had been. 

“I-is Rich oh-okay?” Bill yawned out, his stutter returning without the full use of his brain to correct his speech.

“Yeah, we heard a loud bang.” Ben conceded.

Stan looked back through the cracked door where he saw that the two had moved to the bed, on top of the covers. They curled into and complimented eachother like yin and yang. He turned back to his pajama clad friends.

“Yeah. I think he’s doing just fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, sorry for the wait guys and for the short chapter but I finally got this chapter to where I wanted it after several re-writes and planning sessions! Your comments are so sweet and encouraged me to finish this instead of just throwing it away! If you want more, keep up that energy! THANKS AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3

**Author's Note:**

> You likey? Then please leave a comment, and check out my other IT work, “That’s Super, Man” +"Mike Wheeler and the Shittiest Summer of All TIme" And Check my Tumblr out where I occasionally make funny Joaks™️
> 
> Oh yeah. And kudos!
> 
> (The author would also like to let it be know they also take criticism well)
> 
> WE HAVE A DISCORD BOYS  
> https://discord.gg/8dw2s8D


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